


In My Dreams

by beachboi



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Abduction, Dialogue Heavy, M/M, Murder, Orphanage, more of a combo between the broadway show and the movie, stupid dorks are stupid dorks, the anastasia au you didn't know you needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2019-10-06 18:37:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 33,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17350460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beachboi/pseuds/beachboi
Summary: "When a prince reaches his fifth birthday, he is granted a piece of the crystal that grows with him until he is king -- the same crystal that I wore when I was your age, and my father, and his father before him. Like these forefathers, who grant their power to the prince when he becomes king, so too does this small crystal act as a key to unlocking the true potential of its mother Crystal. But ancestors are always watching over us: never more so that when we are united with our family. The ring I wear, the one you will receive when I am no longer king --" He shows Noctis the Ring of the Lucii, blazing bright blue on his finger. "It connects our ancestors to us. To you -- our future."When the Citadel is overrun by extremists, Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum, heir to Insomnia and Lucis, becomes Noctis the orphan. But deep down inside of him, he knows that something -- someone -- is out there, waiting for him to come home.





	1. Prologue: Once Upon A December

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyo! so this is my first long fic, and i'll try not disappoint. been sitting on this little baby for a while, thought it was good enough to share with people. i hope that this first chapter is good !!!!!!

When he looks out into the crowd that flooded into the grand ballroom, he sees more people than he'd ever learned to count waltzing across the dance floor in huge dresses and well-tailored suits. They're beautiful and regal, and, accompanied by the gentle moonlight setting everything aglow and the sweet, slow tune that the band played, the scene felt like a fairy tale.

He imagined what it'd be like when, one day, he would be dancing among them He hoped he would spin with as much grace, or give as excited a smile. But at the moment, he prefers his mother's lap, her soft hand stroking his hair and melodic voice quietly humming along to the tune.

Soon enough, the boy's father can be seen proceeding through the crowd back to him and his mother. His cape glides behind him like wind, and the moonlight glints off his small headpiece; the headpiece that makes people dodge out of his way, that makes people bow and curtsy and apologize.

He comes up the giant steps to kiss the queen's cheek and bend low to the prince that sits in her lap, giggling and cooing for his father.

"I have something for you," King Regis whispers, making the young prince Noctis grin wide and cover his mouth with excitement. Queen Aulea's smile spreads with his, and she kisses the top of his head.

Regis presents his son with a small box, and an old locket within, engraved L.C..

"This is one of the two greatest gifts a Lucian king will give his son," he began, opening the locket to reveal a tiny piece of crystal -- the Crystal. Aulea's face drops slightly with surprise.

"When a prince reaches his fifth birthday, he is granted a piece of the crystal that grows with him until he is of age -- the same crystal that I wore when I was your age, and my father, and his father before him. Like these forefathers, who grant their power to the prince when he becomes king, so too does this small crystal act as a key to unlocking the true potential of its Mother Crystal. But ancestors are always watching over us: never more so that when we are united with our family. The ring I wear, the one you will receive when I am no longer king and you rule the Lucian people --" He shows Noctis the Ring of the Lucii, blazing bright blue on his finger. "It connects our ancestors to us. To you -- our future."

The soft thrumming of the connection between Ring and Crystal creates a haunting, ethereal sensation that resonates deep in Noctis' bones.

"Do you feel that?" The king asked, life seeming to enter and pass through him all at once. Noctis nods wordlessly and holds the necklace in his hands, mesmerized by the color and the emotions it stirred inside him.

 

 "That's when you'll know you're home."

 

* * *

 

It had been a long night for the prince. Despite constantly nodding off in his mother's lap, he had insisted on watching the party commence until every guest had left -- and even then, he didn't want to go to sleep. Noctis wanted to have one more slice of cake, he wanted the band to play one more song, he wanted to open the gifts that his mother said to leave until tomorrow morning, he wanted his birthday to last just a little longer. 

Despite all he demanded, he still found himself in bed with a nightlight splaying the stars up on his ceiling. The prince turned on his back and fiddled with the locket that had found a permanent home around his neck. When he opened it to look at the stone inside, there was nothing very special about it; it was barely transparent, but it caught the light and deflected it in an interesting way. He couldn't help but think back to earlier that evening, and the warmth that had spread from his fingers to his toes like being dipped in a warm bathtub after being outside in the freezing cold. It made him feel  _good_  in a way he'd never felt before. It put a soft smile of his face as he dozed off thinking of warm things and blue stones.

 

Noctis had barely been asleep when his door was slammed open and castle maids came flooding in. The little prince shot up and looked around him in bewilderment. There were no more stars on his ceiling, all of them replaced by frightened nurses scrambling around the room and digging through Noctis' drawers.

One nurse, just about to draw the curtains, caught the prince's wide eyes staring through the pale moonlight. She quickly pulled them closed, and only a sliver of light was able to spread across the room. Noctis' breath caught in his throat, but the feeling of a hand on his arm pushed it out in the form of a shrill scream.

"Shh -- No, no, Your Highness, 'm Maggie, I won't hurt you -- Please, we have to go, _we have to go!_ " She whispered harshly, trying to keep him calm.

"What's going on?" Noctis demanded, wriggling against the nurse's pull on his arm. 

As an answer to the question, a sharp, bloodcurdling scream echoed from somewhere down the hall, and was then cut short.

One of the girls in the room had to stifle the wail that escaped her throat. Another came close to hug and shush her.

"Prince Noctis, please, you need to go," the maid said shakily, her face now sheet white. 

Noctis' breath was rattling, his heart pounded in his chest, but he allowed the maid to pull him out of bed and down the hall, the opposite way of the shrieking.

It was dark for the most part -- but that was likely for the better. Noctis was still trembling and looking around him wildly for a familiar face. All he could recognize was the soft carpet beneath his feet and the dimly lit portraits of his ancestors. They seemed to  _look_  at him, their eyes burning into his skull, as if they wanted to sear themselves into it.

He stared back at them as the maid led him through turn after turn, finally stopping in a quadrant of the castle Noctis had never been in. They crept along the hall, halting at a wall showcasing a painting of the castle above a small, round, and heavy-looking table. Maggie put a finger on her lips --  _keep quiet_  -- and shoved the table aside. She clawed at the wall until it ripped off like wallpaper. Behind it was a small, secret door.

She pulled a key from her apron pocket and jammed it into the lock, hands shaking; nervous to be caught. When it finally opened, Noctis had to shield his eyes from the light that hit them.

"Noctis! Thank you, Maggie, I knew you could do it," a familiar voice called from inside. It was Ignis and his calm, cool, and collected countenance, the only person that would make everything okay.

The maid nodded and gently pulled the prince through the door. She cupped his face, just briefly, before turning back to shut and lock the door. The scrape of metal on the floor meant that she had placed the table back where it was to put them back into hiding.

"Are you okay?" Ignis asked, taking Noct's hand and leading him across the small, closet-sized room. Inside were more of the palace help, all looking nervous."I'm okay," he tried to say, but not before a loud gunshot sounded off not too far away. It made him recoil, and then tear up. "I-I'm scared --"

"Don't worry, Your Highness, you'll be safe. I'm here, and Gladiolus is coming. Just come this way," Ignis knelt before him, right next to a dark square of an exit.

"No -- No, I don't want to! Where's mother and father? Ignis, where are they?" Noctis cried, resisting Ignis' gentle guidance toward the escape hatch. 

"They're on the other side, Noctis, and they need to you to be brave and obedient right now. If you just follow it, there's a car that they're in, and you'll be with them," the adviser said. As much as he was trying to hide the panic in his voice, the urgency in his tone and the speed with which he spoke gave him away. 

"Are -- Are you going to come, too? A-And Maggie?" He whimpered.

"Not yet, but soon. We'll all be okay, don't worry," Ignis said with a small, reassuring smile.

The prince nodded and held Ignis hand as he began crawling through a small tunnel; judging by the cool wind that blew through it, it was a way out.

Soon enough, he came out into a tiny clearing between two wings of the Citadel, hidden by the giant barrier that surrounded the edifice.

Noctis has hoped to see his mother and father waiting for him, arms outstretched. Glaives would surround them, protect them from anything.

What he wasn't expecting was a car completely turned over and smoking from the hood.

The driver had been impaled on the tall spires of a gate, and his mother's body lay slumped between the wall of the castle and the cold floor. Blood was spattered everywhere.

He slowly turned his head and saw the king wielding a broadsword of blue magic, blood dripping from his arm and head. He was fending off hordes of attackers with it, and using magic to keep others at bay. His eyes were wild, his entire body pulsing with the magic, and the ring on his finger was blue fire.

Noctis shrieked at the sight.

The entire battle scene froze at the sound, and they all turned to its source. The king's eyes, wide with fury, soon bore the expression of pure terror.

_"NOCTIS!"_

With the emergence of the prince, no one stayed still for much longer. The ambush proceeded, just as strong as before, but all attackers aimed for the small boy. Regis shifted himself in his son's direction, slowly backing up to shield him.

"NOCTIS, RUN!" His father bellowed, just before slashing a man in half with his broadsword.

The prince could barely think; his mind was blank, his limbs were heavy. He had no clue what was happening, but he could barely move, could barely register what his father was telling him to do. All he was capable of was shifting his focus between his father's face, the bloody bodies piling at his feet, the woman slumped lifeless against the wall of the Citadel.

The king turned back to look at him with what few slivers of a second he could afford. "RUN!"

It was just in time; Regis pulled back and rammed his sword into the chest of a man who had made a wild dash for the prince with his axe hung over his head. The stab spattered blood on the king's sword, on his clothes, on Noctis' face. That was when it finally clicked, that people were trying to  _kill them_ , and he started sprinting for his life.

He followed the Citadel wall, looking for a way to get through the front gate without being spotted. But in the darkness, he could hardly see anything past his hand -- and so, he ran face-first into a person. When he realized that person was dressed in all black, and certainly not alone, he gave a scream and darted away.

"What the -- HEY! THAT'S THE KID!" The man called behind him, and soon Noctis heard the rapid footfall of three people following him.

He knew he didn't have a lot of time before they'd catch up: his leg was probably the length of one of their arms. There had to be something, a way out that the architects of the impregnable Citadel had let slip.

A low gate of a parapet that looked out onto the edge of the city proved to be his answer. 

He jumped and grabbed onto its rung, and, not without effort, pulled himself up. When he looked down, he was sure that the distance to the ground was at least twice his height, but when he looked behind him, men three times larger than him followed in close pursuit, all brandishing knives. So there wasn't much of a choice but to jump.

When he hit the ground, he couldn't hold back a yelp of fear, shock, and pain. A stripe of flame ran up his back that made him dizzy, but otherwise, he found that he could move each limb. And, as his followers began to climb over the gate, he needed to use them.

Under the cover of darkness, it was easy for someone as small as Noctis to stay hidden under shop awnings and tiny alleys that congregated just behind the castle-- that is, until Noctis was no longer under its protection, but under the lights of the city proper.

This part of the city was only vaguely familiar to Noctis during the day, since he had only been outside a handful of times before; at night, it looked and felt like he was in another country. Bright lights shone everywhere, advertising everything from luxury watches to home goods. Luckily, there was still a decently-sized crowd of people, even at this time of night: someone would help him, their crown prince.

"Fucking brat, c'mere -- !" A voice seethed out in a harsh whisper. Noctis gave a small shriek as he narrowly avoided a hand that shot out from behind, ready to clamp around his neck. He staggered, nearly lost his footing, but was able to keep running.

He barreled into the throngs of bodies, weaved in and out of people with no clear direction in mind. All he knew was that every time he looked behind him, there was a man following, murder in his eyes -- and he was only getting closer.

Suddenly, after just snapping his head to look in front of him, Noctis ran right into someone. It knocked him backwards, made him confused -- and then the man yelled, looking above Noctis' head. "Man, relax! Everyone's gonna get onto the damn train, you don't need to push!"

"I didn't push you, idiot! Just get on!" Another voice behind him spat.

"Oh, so I just  _imagined_  being shoved? Or did I shove myself?"

"I don't know what goes on in an  _idiot's_  head!"

The two people began to bicker, and Noctis quickly scurried out of their way before things escalated. But, as the man had said, there stood before the little boy a huge train, and it was quickly being filled: the perfect escape.

Noct pushed forward, determined to get on, to finally be safe -- and then he felt something hard and small strike the side of his head, and everything went black.

 

"Sigma, it's Beta Fox. I found Little Bear, he got on the train. Knocked him down with a rock."

_"Good job, Beta Fox! Are you on it, or should we intercept?"_

"I got on the car, but I can't see him, there's so many fucking people. Gonna wait until it thins out, don't want to start anything. I'll keep a lookout for him."

_"Thinking smart. Keep those eyes sharp. We'll position Independents at each stop coming out of the city. We'll have him soon. Over and out."_

Snapping the dud phone closed, Beta Fox  pushed to the back of the train car, where he could watch every single door, and waited patiently for people to get off the different stops: Ostium Gorge, Hammerhead, Three Valleys, and finally, Galdin Quay. Hardly anyone on the entire train was getting off past Leide, and yet... none of the small children he had seen exit the train were the prince. 

With only two people left in the car, there was space to look around for any little ones that might be hiding. Fishing in his pocket, he grabbed a couple of coins and pretended to drop them. They flew all over the car, and the passengers, too wrapped up in either a phone or a newspaper, hardly even bothered to look up.

"Sorry, I'll just --" He bent low, very slowly picking up the change and taking the opportunity to look under the seats. There was nothing except for a couple of granola bar wrappers that someone couldn't be bothered to take with them.

He strode nonchalantly to the other side of the car and peered out the window that looked into the next car. He hadn't seen any of the inter-car doors slide open, but... 

Still nothing. No one was even in the next car.

He balled up his fist and looked back at the passengers. Neither of them had anything suggesting that they were hiding a small child.

Beta Fox thought back to each and every time the doors opened to a new station. He had watched every single one, and not a single child even had black hair. If that was the case, and Prince Noctis wasn't on the train now...

He immediately whipped out his phone and dialed Sigma again -- the most important rule was that they do not call any number twice, but this was an emergency.

"Sigma, it's Beta Fox."

_"Beta Fox -- You are not supposed to --"_

"I know, sir, I know, but -- But I need to know if anyone picked up Little Bear yet."

_"No one has him yet. And you must have reached the Quay by now, so you should be able to see him, or look for him, or whatever --"_

"Sir, I looked. And I've watched. No one's... on here."

_"What?"_

"Sir, I... I lost him."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry if it felt slow, trying to lay out some exposition hehe
> 
> please leave comments or feedback if you are so inclined !!! i'll try to update once a week (maybe more often, since i'm still on break). thursdays work for y'all?


	2. On The Road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> accidentally deleted the entire chapter because i'm a fool :)

When Noctis opened his eyes, his senses were automatically overstimulated. It all hit him at once: the bright sun; the noises of people talking, eating, and walking; the feel of concrete under his hands; a pounding headache; and a putrid smell that assaulted his nostrils. 

He struggled to his feet if only to get away from the stench, but soon tripped and landed on a bag stuffed to the brim with trash. In fact, when he actually stood, he was surrounded by it.

Coughing and tearing up in reaction to the smell, he fought his way out of the sea of waste and onto the street. There was only a second of respite before he thought to look around him... and realized that he had absolutely no clue where he was. Nothing looked familiar.

As far as he could see, there were giant buildings and flashing bright advertisements and people,  _so many people._  His senses were overloaded, it made him want to scream, want to cry, want to vomit. 

Instead, the little boy let out a heartbreaking wail.

 

It was all a whirl from there. Immediately, complete strangers had come to the five-year-old's aid. They asked him where his parents were or what his name was, and, when Noctis cried several times that he didn't know the answer to either question, they took him to the police station. He had waited for what seemed like forever until a pair of women led him into a car. They drove across the city, and Noctis was instructed to stay in a room until his parents came for him.

No one came.

After a few days, a man with a briefcase told Noctis to pack his things -- not that he had anything except the clothes on his back -- and brought him to a small van. Inside were six other children, none of whom were very talkative. 

The van had gone on for another eternity, stopping only for a few hours for the driver to sleep. When he was let out, Noctis found that he was not in a city at all.

They stopped in front of a considerably large yellow house with a green roof and a white picket fence surrounding its perimeter. Trees, grass, and other foliage crowded around it, as if they were waiting for just the right opportunity to swallow the place up. The house was the most exciting part of the landscape, however; when Noctis turned his head in any other direction, he saw the same rolling hills, tall mountains, and abundance of rocks and pebbles.

A woman with a sky blue cape and red hat came out of the house and knelt to greet them. She introduced herself as Sania. She said that she would be their new mother for a while, until they found one of their own. Then she took them inside and showed them to their rooms (and the ten other children they would share it with).

Still with no idea who he was or where he had come from, he asked Sania if she knew his name. She raised her eyebrows in confusion, and then knit them close in an expression of thoughtfulness.

"Well, little one," she began, hand on her chin. "I've had to name the little babies, sure, but never a toddler before... But my, you look like the little prince in the papers, Six bless his soul! If your face was maybe a little rounder, and your eyes a little higher up... You'll be Noctis, then. And you better live up to that name, seeing as its original owner never got the chance." With that, she dismissed him and went downstairs -- and Noctis realized he would never know anything more of his past.

 

For thirteen years, Noctis grew up as an orphan in the heart of Duscae, living on the bare minimum and making do with what little he had. Leaum, his little village, hardly had enough food as it was; the orphanage had less. The heir to the kingdom had grown up humble and hungry.

He had made plans to steal a couple times, when he was growing desperate for food. But something inside him, something intrinsic... He felt absolutely awful for even thinking to steal from these people who likely needed it more than him, what with all the small children he saw running around. Every shop owner had his own family to feed, and Noctis was taking food right out of their mouths.

So he decided to make an honest living: he taught himself to fish in Cape Caem with a stick, a string, and some worms. It was slow fishing to say the least, but for some reason, Noctis didn't mind. Fishing was calming, relaxing, it took his mind off of his miserable orphanage life.

Soon enough, however, he was catching fish. He learned the ways to do it with his makeshift rod, and soon had one more fish than he could sensibly eat. Then he had two. Then he had ten.

He sold what fish he caught to the local shop owners or gave them to Sania, and soon had made a tiny living and name for himself in the town.

So when he had finally turned 18 -- his birthday being the day which he had shown up at the orphanage, rather than the birth- and death-day of his namesake -- Noctis had a job lined up with the local fishing company. Everything was laid out for him: he had a job, then he'd find a wife, then he'd have kids, and they'd have kids, until Noctis was a great-great-great grandpa. What a life.

"Alright, the fishers are in the next town over. So you follow this road  _straight_  until you hit a big old fork, and then make a left. You hear me? Straight and left!" Sania directed him. She held his arm and pressed close in a motherly way; Noctis had quickly become one of her favorites despite his temper tantrums when he'd needed to eat his veggies. It was sad to see him go.

"Straight and left," Noct echoed. At 18 years old, he was all handsome features that were still slightly soft in some places. With his looks, he might be able to charm his way into a high position in the company, and possibly even marry a richer man's daughter.  
  
"Oh, Noct, it's a big day for you. The rest of your life is going to start, and it'll be great!"  
  
"Yeah. Do you -- Do you think I'll be able to find my family?" Noctis asked suddenly as they reached the gates at the end of the walkway. The question had come unbidden, clawed its way out of Noct's throat.  
  
Sania's eyes raised in surprise at how bluntly the question was asked. "Find your -- Noctis. Now, listen here, honey, you have worked too hard already to be worried about that, and we've been over this. They found you in a pile of  _garbage,_  the police even had the goodness of heart to foster you a few days and send out an alert! If there was anyone to come looking for you, you'd've been just a couple phone calls away. You've got to forget about whoever was in your past and focus on _your_ future. You're going to be an important man! In the fishing company, that is," Sania had to add before her charge got any bright ideas about leaving Duscae. The big city crooks would chew her little Noctis up and spit him out.  
  
"I know," Noctis said, not without a hint of resentment in his voice. "I just... It feels sometimes... Like they're out there, Sania, you kn--"  
  
"No more of that, boy! Look, you're at the road. Follow it straight and left," she repeated, just before a farewell kiss goodbye on the cheek. "You be good now, and I expect to see a few packages of fish coming my way in the next couple'a weeks!"   
  
With one more pat on the arm and a kiss on the cheek, Sania turned back to her little home. Not long after, she grumbled, "Like his family's not as good as dead. Fishing is all he's gonna get. Who does he think he is, the actual bloody prince?"

 

* * *

  
The dead end that Sania had told Noctis to walk towards was a hell of a ways away from the orphanage, and Noctis was starving by the time he had it in his sights.  
  
He'd thought about venturing off the path a few times, and maybe even turning back to beg for food (a task that was undoubtedly easier when he was still a wide-eyed, full-cheeked kid), but something made him keep going. He couldn't quit, not now.  
  
"'They tossed you out with the garbage, Noctis.' 'They didn't want you, Noctis!' 'They're probably freakin' dead, Noctis!' Well, last time I checked, you don't even know how to open an email, so I doubt you know much about my parents," Noctis grumbled, bitter about his empty stomach and the unsettling feeling Sania left him with.  
  
Noctis reached in his shirt and pulled out a tiny necklace. It barely fit around his neck anymore, but he couldn't ever bring himself to take it off -- not when it was the only thing he owned his  _entire_  life, since before the orphanage. His fingers grazed over the carved  _L.C._  on its surface. No matter how many times he'd taken polish to the damned thing, it still looked incredibly old.

He pushed his fingernail under the clasp and opened it to reveal the rock inside. When he turned it, the sun reflected off of it to shine deep blue. That color made him feel good somehow. Warm, comforted. Not alone. It was the diesel for his wildest fantasies, as if... as if someone,  _someones_  were trying to reach him.

"She doesn't know what she's talking about." Whatever this necklace was, it served the basis for the belief he had that his family existed out there... somewhere.

That somewhere was very likely not at a fishing company in Duscae, he thought as his feet came to a stop at the crossroads. If he went left, there was a set future, admittedly not the worst, waiting for him. He'd die an honest fisherman, and probably be somewhere around happy. Satisfied, at least?

Right was... Well, it was the unknown. It was to take a chance on a gut feeling, to throw away everything he'd worked towards for the past five years. A chance to find a family that was very likely dead.

"Maybe... Sanja's right," he voiced, disappointed, and resolute in leaving the unfamiliar pathway alone and going left. Not ten steps in did he feel a terrible aching in his heart and his mind became unsettled, forcing him to turn back and rethink his choice.

"Maybe right isn't a bad idea," he decided after all, walking up the right pathway. But that was stupid, an absolutely stupid move. No one was out there for him if they couldn't find their kid in the piles of trash at a train station. Or rather, wouldn't.

So he turned back, stuck at the middle of the fork.

_Which way should he go?_

He sat down to stare at the roads, hoping that something... anything would just pop out of the blue and guide him.

And then he saw something burst out from the forest.

"Shitshitshit --" It was a young man about Noct's age, blonde hair gelled up and baby blues scanning around wildly for something. Then his eyes set on Noctis, and he recoiled and hid whatever was in his hands behind his back.

"Hey! Uh -- Nothing to see here! I'm just, uh --" Then he looked behind him and jumped. He started scrambling and ran past the road into the other side of the forest.

A heartbeat after, a small group of policemen came, batons waving. They looked around themselves angrily, and then realized that Noctis was standing there.

"You, there! You seen a blonde kid here? Somewhere around ten seconds ago?"

"Oh -- Oh, officers, he went -- He went left!" Noctis stuttered, not knowing what else to say. "Back into where you guys just came out of! He -- He saw me and turned tail."

"Good man! Keep safe on these roads. Thieves crawling all over these parts," one officer warned, and the group turned around and went back.

Noctis waited for some time before turning to the right side. "They're gone, if you're still there."

A crack and a snap later, the boy came out again. He looked flustered and disheveled, a thin, wrinkly coat hanging off an even thinner frame and a threadbare scarf barely hanging onto his neck.  As Noctis got a better look at him, he could see freckles splotched all over his nose and cheeks underneath one or two layers of grime. The blonde stood lean and lanky; Noctis assumed that this wasn't the stranger's first couple of escape-from-the-police sprints.  
  
"Thanks for getting them off my back, man. Really 'preciate it --"  
  
"What were they chasing after you for?"  
  
"Uh -- Nothing, it's a small little --"  
  
"I can call them back," Noctis said, deadpan.

The boy's eyebrows raised in surprise, and then furrowed with regret. He revealed what was behind his back: a loaf of bread. But his opposite balled up into a fist, and determination covered his face. "What, you gonna steal it from me?"

"What?" Noctis asked, coming closer. Just  _bread?_   "No, I don't want your -- They were all chasing you for that?"

The boy scoffed. "'Scuse _me_ , but this is a good loaf of bread. It's only got a little bit of mold on it, no biggie," he added as a bitter joke. If that was what passed for bread worth stealing, Noctis thought, then maybe he'd had it better in the orphanage than he'd thought.

"Where are you going?" Noctis asked, brows knitting at the joke.

"What's it to you?" The boy shot back defensively, stepping away as Noctis got closer.

"I don't -- Sorry, this started all wrong. I'm Noctis. I'm travelling to Deunnel. Gonna be a fisherman," he said halfheartedly, still unsure of his destination.

After giving him a couple once-overs, the blonde slowly said, "Prompto. And I'm travelling, too. Headed to Insomnia. Which is that way," Prompto said finitely, pointing towards the right. "So, Mr. Fisherman, thanks for all your help. Safe journey!"

Prompto started walking, waving his hand behind him. Noctis watched him begin to walk away, and then turned to the left hand side of the road.

 _Insomnia._  Wherever that place was sounded way better than Deunnel. Maybe that was a sign.

"Wait!" Noctis called, jogging after the blonde.

"What? I have bread, not fish," Prompto said smartly, having already ripped a piece off and eaten it.

"I -- Do you need a travelling buddy?" Noct couldn't help but doubt himself in his head, but his heart felt...  _clear._

"To Insomnia? It's a long walk, dude, the other corner of Lucis."

"Gonna be seeing a lot of cool stuff, then," Noctis shot back, refusing to give up now.

"You're gonna have to feed yourself."

"Well, I didn't get a job as a fisherman for sitting on my ass all day."

"Isn't that what fishermen do?" Prompto said with a wry smile.

Noctis chuckled and knew that he'd made the right turn. "This is gonna be an interesting trip."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading !!!!!! <3 <3


	3. Journey to the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Road trip! Except no cars. And they're poor and hungry. They're getting to know each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello !!! so i know that this chapter is a couple days late and i'm sorry :( i had to pack to go back to school, and then the snowstorm got in the way of things but !! we should be back on track maybe? an update this friday, not thursday, is looking a little more probable. i'm trying to write longer chapters, but inspiration only wants to come for, like, 20 minutes at a time :/
> 
> thank you guys so much for reading and the support! it means so so much to me :) now that's noctis' story is more underway at the end of this chapter, things should get a little faster!

"I spy with my little eye... A rock."

"Noct, you're supposed to spy something that starts with _d_."

"Yeah, well, the only thing I see that starts with a d is you, dickhead."

  
Through stupid travelling games like these ivert two days of trekking at a breakneck pace through the Duscean wilderness, Noctis had hardly realized that Prompto was the best friend he'd never had.

The trip had started with small talk; Prompto had asked what Leaum was like, and Noctis gave the best summary he could muster ("Dude, one time, I was so bored, I watched grass grow for, like, an hour"). Noctis asked the same of his trabelling partner, and Prompto gave an answer with just as much quip ("Same in Gyrum -- it's in Cleigne -- except you might have spotted a kid trying to eat some for dinner, instead of _air d'la nature_ "). When Noctis laughed, so did Prompto -- and the rest was history.

The whole thing happened so naturally that it was a little scary. They had the same sense of humor, the same interests in video games that, in their impoverished corner of Lucis, they had never gotten to play, and the same crappy phones that were devoted solely to King's Knight and emergency calls. That first night of their journey, when they had settled into bed after a minuscule dinner of the few snacks that Noctis had brought along, they nearly stayed up until dawn playing the game together. Noctis had never known time to pass to quickly and so slowly at the same time.

"Hey, I thought we agreed to lay off the hair!" As if it were second nature, Prompto pruned the side-quiff he had growing in with his hands. His bottom lip pushed out in a little pout.

"I'm not talking about your hair, it's the way your head is shaped _just so_ \--" Noct traced the phallic shape along Prompto's surprisingly soft skin, and the blonde laughed and pushed his hand away.

"You're really bad at I Spy and you're a total asshole, anyone ever told you that?"

"Eh, even the Six have flaws," Noctis shot back, a smug grin spreading across his face. Prompto scoffed and playfully shoved him again -- and of course, Noctis had to get back at him. Laughing and screaming, Noctis chased Prompto through the woods, completely forgetting about their tired legs, dry throats, empty bellies, and a breezy early autumn that warned of a coming cold.

Noctis hounded Prompto to a grizzly old oak tree that marked the dead end of a path. With nowhere to run and out of breath, Prompto put up his hands -- not that it mattered. Noctis pounced on him anyway.

"Ow -- OW! Dude, watch the hair, seriously -- Uncle, uncle!" The blond shouted, hardly able to fight back with his sides splitting themselves in his laughter.

Noctis had pinned Prompto down just by sitting on top of him, though it hadn't taken much effort. Prompto was so scrawny, it almost felt like he was sitting on the ground. But upon hearing the hallowed words of surrender, Noctis rolled off, still chuckling and breathless from the pursuit.

The two lay on the earth, looking up at the sky. It was still blue and cloudless for the most part, the exception being the tinge of pink in the west; it wasn't long before nightfall. But away from Leaum and the mediocre fate that had waited for him in Deunnel, and laying here with Prompto, breathing in time, on their way to the unknown in Insomnia? Noctis didn't find the whole getting-up-and-making-camp-to-avoid-getting-mauled-by-daemons thing too pressing. He closed his eyes, was just about to drift off...

"Just think," Prompto started as if he knew that Noctis had been _that_ close to falling asleep. "Tomorrow we'll be in Galdin Quay. Think we'll be able to afford to sleep on a grain of sand there?"

Noct's eyes shot wide open at that.

He pushed himself up onto his elbows, eyebrows reaching for his hairline. "Galdin Quay? As in, _the_ Galdin Quay?"

Prompto turned his face to Noctis; their expressions matched. "Yeah, where did you think we were going, bro? We passed, like, six billion signposts on the way here. But I think we gotta turn back a little, since you decided to go all Van Pelt on me and we got off the trail a little --"

"No, why didn't you -- Gods, I didn't know -- That's, like, the fishing capital, man! The culture is almost completely dependent on the sea, and you can take a boat out and be _surrounded_ by ocean, and they have this awesome fishing spot that has _glowing barrelfish_. I've always wanted to fish there!"

The look on Prompto's face had turned from surprised to absolutely stricken over the course of Noct's rambling -- much to his chagrin. Maybe he had been a little too enthusiastic about his trade with someone who had probably never seen bait.

"Sorry, uh, there's just this Youtuber who does a lot of videos on Quay fish --"

"You don't gotta be sorry! It's only that, well... I've never met anyone was into something so... Different."

Noctis frowned at how the word had been dragged out, as if Prompto wasn't sure that was the word he should be using. "Look, if you're calling me weird, I get it. I won't talk about it again.

"No, wait, I didn't mean it like that -- What I meant was -- Look --" Prompto held up his finger while digging in the confines of his raggedy jacket. He pulled out what looked like a digital camera. Beneath all the grime, Noctis was almost sure that it was a sleek black -- grey, maybe? Prompto's slender wrist slipped inside the wristband with lightning speed.

Before Noctis could even register what was happening in time to very indignantly protest, Prompto had pulled the gadget up to his eye and snapped a photo.

"See? This is my _weird_ thing."

"You take pictures?" Noctis asked, incredulous. His arm had reflexively shot up to cover his face, but he doubted that it had blocked the candid shot that Prompto had stolen.

Prompto's sly smile spread across his face, and Noctis couldn't help but notice that it was sort of uneven -- almost lopsided. "No, it's a fake camera and I carry it around in case I need to make people _think_ I'm taking pictures of them. Gotta stay a step ahead of the game at all times, you know?"

"Shut up and let me see what you got."

Completely forgetting the need to find shelter, Noctis and Prompto sat huddled close together looking at Prompto's extensive gallery. There were silly pictures on it -- awkward selfies in bad lighting that had Prompto squawking and reaching for the camera that Noctis held just out of arm's length -- but also absolutely stunning photos, too. It seemed that Gyrum at sunrise and sundown was Prompto's favorite subject, and he did the sun-bathed rocky mountains justice. Noctis pulled the tiny camera, gritty beneath his fingers, up close to his eyes so that he might be able to see every detail of one picture better.

From the perspective of the top of some tall cliff, a vast grassland sprawled out in vivid orange. The vantage point overlooked the small village sparsely littered with the same evergreens that surrounded it on all sides. Not too far in the distance, there was a hint of a quiet lake; it set the somber, calm mood of the photo, as if the essence of sunrise had been encapsulated within Prompto's camera.

"How did you get this?" Noct's voice was quiet, breathless.

Prompto didn't answer until Noctis looked up at him, and the blonde seemed to come back to life. "Oh, uh -- I know it doesn't look like it, but I go running in the mornings. There's this huge mountain range next to Gyrum, and one day, I figured I might, uh... Take a picture up there."

"Prom, this is amazing! You -- You don't want to, like, do something with this? Go to art school, maybe? Insomnia's the capital, there's gotta be some fancy place up there that would be super lucky to have you there --"

Noctis saw something flicker in Prompto's eyes, and the camera was soon all but snatched out of his hands.

"I'm not going to Insomnia for that. And anyway, we gotta set up camp before it gets too dark. Galdin's still half a day away."

Noctis watched him get up and stalk off in search of high ground. He hadn't cared about what Prompto was travelling so far for -- after all, Noctis didn't really know what  _he_  was going to Insomnia to do -- but now, he couldn't help but wonder.

They spent the rest of the night in silence, the tension heating the air; Noctis had hit a nerve without realizing it.

 

* * *

 

With a quick breakfast of the last of Noct's Doritos and a lame attempt of Prompto's to smooth his hair into place, the two had set off again.

Noctis had assumed the last stretch until they arrived at Galdin Quay would have just as much awkward silence as the night before, but Prompto had softly elbowed him in the arm just as they began walking.

"Sorry about getting weird last night. I'm happy you think that my stuff looks good."

"No worries, man. Just no more random pictures of me, okay? I probably look like a mess."

Prompto gave him a side-eye, but said nothing else on the subject. Soon, the Cleigner had preoccupied himself with fiddling with the threads on the ends of his scarf.

 

The rest of the walk was comfortably silent for the most part, intermittently broken by "Dude, cool, look at that," or Prompto's quiet humming of random little songs. 

All Noctis could do with the rare chance of quiet, of the opportunity to reflect, was think,  _really think,_ about how absolutely, downright stupid he was.

He had thrown it all away. Here he was, an orphan from Hicksville, Lucis, who had left the prospect of a stable life doing what he loved, and for what? If he had gone Deunnel, he would probably be enjoying a nice, sunny day by the bay with a full stomach and a warm jacket. But right now, he was starving and a little chilly, walking headlong toward a very likely future of being a hobo on the streets of Insomnia. What a great trade-off.

But it was the  _capital._  It'd be a hustling and bustling city, with people who know people -- people who might be able to lead him to the identities of parents who'd left him in a pile of trash. That's what he was on his way to do, if nothing else, he decided. His hand subconsciously raised to his chest, to the little lump of metal that rested on top of it.

"Hey -- Hey, look! Can you see it? The ocean!" Prompto exclaimed excitedly, pointing to a spot just past a cluster of tall fir trees. Noctis had to squint to see the sun glinting off of clear blue waves. Suddenly, he felt much better about this journey that he chose; seeing the water made filled him with anticipation, like he was getting  _closer_  to something big.

"Well, I'm not planning on eating  _air d'la nature_  for dinner tonight. Let's go," Noctis said, a grin spreading across his face. As lazy as he usually was, he found that he was itching to get to their first stop -- so much so that he started jogging away.

"Since when did you want to run anywhere?" Prompto called after him, laughing. 

They raced each other to the bridge despite the considerable distance through forest tracks and weaving through trees and bushes. It came as little surprise to either Prompto or Noctis that by the time they arrived, Noctis had to hold his knees and suck air into his lungs. Standing above him, with his chest also heaving and skin glittering with sweat, Prompto put his hands on his hips.

"What's the matter? Out of shape?" Prompto teased, a sly smile on his face.

"Shut... Up..." Noctis wheezed. His heart rate was finally starting to drop. His partner laughed breathlessly, but decided to leave well enough alone.

When Noctis could finally stand up again, he was able to take in the scenery. Trees crowded around the tunnel that would take them straight to Galdin Quay. It was like a hidden door into a secret world -- a world that would change his life. Somehow, that made his skin prickle.

"This is it, Noct -- Just a hop and a skip, and we'll be good for a few nights, maybe. You can fish us some food, and I saw on Reddit that there's a little campground not too far off in the woods. That is, if we don't get chased off by the locals for being too poor to breathe the air."

Noctis gave a quiet little chuckle that that; he was more fixated on the idea of just  _being_  there.

"Welp," Prompto finished, taking a step forward into the tunnel. Noctis watched him pass for just a moment before following him in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we love best friend fluff and foreshadowing :) 
> 
> what do you guys want to see from coming chapters? i've only outlined this far into the story (planning your writing ?? what's that ????) so that i have some foundation for more organic ideas, if that makes sense. i'd like some feedback :))) !!
> 
> stay rad y'all !!!!!!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
> 
> ̶o̶r̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶b̶e̶t̶a̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶k̶i̶n̶d̶


	4. Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noctis gets closer and closer...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY Y'ALL I KNOW I'M LATE BY LIKE SO MANY DAYS DON'T HATE ME
> 
> i moved in last week, and then there was starting classes, and most of my classes have lots of reading to do so ??? i'm thinking more that saturday-sunday will have to be the days for updates. 
> 
> reading and re-reading and editing takes a lot of work; props to people who can actually make a schedule and stick to it lmao
> 
> also forgot to mention so long ago !!! the idea to write something like this was largely inspired by a little ol fic called What Lies Within! it's a beautifully written Beauty and the Beast AU that i totally recommend !! https://archiveofourown.org/works/12434457/chapters/28299969 !! 
> 
> anyway sorry for the rambling this chapter is my little baby hope you like it !!!

Noctis let his hand drag across the cool concrete inside the tunnel as he and Prompto began their stride into the Quay. It wasn't incredibly long -- when Noctis squinted, he could see the light at the other end -- but it still felt like a lifetime had passed before they were halfway through. And Prompto, he noticed, wasn't one for silence in a quiet and echo-y place like a tunnel. 

His travelling partner had started blabbering not five minutes after they'd entered, mentioning a lot of random trivia about chocobos ("The color of their ear is the same color as their eggs!"), and a constant stream of "Man, I hope we get out of here soon." He had drifted close to Noctis eventually, their shoulders sometimes knocking. The orphan said nothing at first, but he could see the lines forming between Prompto's eyebrows, watched how his hands would fidget and grab either arm, as if Prompto was trying to make himself smaller -- something was wrong.

"Hey, uh. What do you wanna do once we get there? Other than find, like, food and shelter and all that unimportant stuff."

"Um -- Not sure. Just kinda focused on  _getting there,_  you know? After this _freaking tunnel_ , there's still, like, a half hour walk until we reach."

"Seems like you have a bone to pick with this freaking tunnel," Noctis attempted, looking over at the blonde.

Prompto seemed to jump a little, and looked back at his friend. "What -- What makes you say that? I'm fine with tunnels. Absolutely fine." His voice was shaky, uneven -- Noctis had to raise an eyebrow at that.

The blonde stammered for a bit, trying to save face, but then let out a defeated sigh. "It's the whole thing of... having, like, a couple tons of rock above your head. And being kinda far from an exit on either side. And having a narrow walkway. It just -- freaks me out some, is all." he conceded, hugging himself tighter. 

Now, Noctis knew that he hadn't known Prompto for long -- but, judging by the quick pace with which Prompto's chest rose and fell, the way his nostrils flared and constricted, and the death-like, pallid shade his clammy skin took on, it was all too obvious that he was on the fast track to having a complete breakdown. The only issue was that he'd never met anyone who was claustrophobic, at least to Prompto's degree.

So he slung an arm over the other's shoulders to pull him in from a loose side-hug, deciding to try whatever came to mind. "Yeah, but think of how blue that ocean's gonna be, man. And you can see it for miles and miles -- totally calm, nice and wide..."

It didn't take long for a bright hue of pink to dust Prompto's cheeks and ears -- Noctis was afraid that he was getting even more nervous. "W-We still won't  _be there_  for miles and miles, and -- and --"

"No ands." He tried his quietest, most soothing voice. "You're gonna make it just fine. We're in this together, and I'm not about to let anything happen to my tour guide."

" _Tour guide?"_  Prompto said indignantly, and not a little loudly. "That's all I get? You can go buy yourself another tour guide at the Quay."

"I don't think you can buy tour guides who double as best friends."

The pink on Prompto's face turned red, and Noctis bit his lip. Again, he knew full well that it had only been a few days, but... Being with Prompto was so  _easy,_  and there were very, very few things in his life that earned that adjective. In a house with nearly forty other orphans, no one had ever made him feel the way talking to Prompto did. In his head, he thought of the blonde as his best friend -- what if it wasn't the other way around?

"Best friends, huh?" The blonde's voice came out as a squeak.

"Um. Yeah. Unless you don't feel comfortable --"

"No, I want -- ! I mean, like, that's cool, dude. You're my best friend, too." Prompto had tried to mask the obvious excitement at the new title -- it was all in how quick he was to correct himself -- and it made Noctis smile. Now, he had an official best friend.

"Alright, then,  _dude._  Think you can make it til the end of the tunnel?"

"Yeah, but -- but I don't think by myself. It's -- better if you, uh..." The words trailed off, but Noctis understood:  _don't let go._

"Got it," Noct responded, pulling Prompto just a little closer. 

* * *

"Listen, I'd love to help you out, but if I gave a huge discount to every well-meaning kid who passed my shop, I'd be broke. Spider Silk is thirty gil, no more, no less."

"I'm sorry, but there's  _no way_  that Spider Silk is that much here when it's eight gil in Duscae!"

"Then maybe you should go back to Duscae, where people are most likely sellin' you  _string._ "

Noctis grit his teeth and stormed away from the old shopkeeper who had already turned back to his stock in the back of his little fishing goods hut. The trip to Galdin Quay had lasted a total of fifteen minutes, and it took a turn for the worst real fast.

They'd arrived a little later than they'd have liked; the sun was already getting ready to disappear for the night, and fishing, no matter how big or small the fish one wanted to catch, took quite a while. Despite this, Noctis was ecstatic to finally feel the satisfyingly briny air hit his face and fill his senses. The Quay was sprawled out in front of him: a  _giant_  expanse of deep blue ocean and giving way to brilliantly white sand, with only a small boardwalk off on the side that hosted what some said was the best restaurant in Lucis, maybe even the world. However, within second, his eyes had completely fixated on the fishing pier, and he had rarely ever felt such excitement as in that moment.

The plan was for Noctis to fish while Prompto went off in search of the haven. With ten gil between them, however, Prompto had suggested that they do a little bit of begging. It seemed like a foolproof idea -- that is, until Noctis tried to use their measly funds to buy something that cost an arm and a leg.

_At this point, there's no reason to find somewhere to sleep -- we'll die of starvation in the middle of the night,_  Noctis thought bitterly.

"Hey -- Hey, Noct, wait up! We'll figure something out," Prompto called after him, having to jog to keep up with Noct's wide angry strides.

"What are we gonna _figure out?_  We have _ten_  gil, and even if you sold every piece of clothing on your back, you'd end up with less! That's it, man, we're gonna die out here!"

"No, we're not," Prompto assured him, ignoring the insult and dusting up sand as he fought to match Noct's pace across the beach. "Maybe if we go over to the restaurant, tell 'em we'll bus for 'em for the night or something, they might give us some scraps."

"Oh, yeah, because a five-star restaurant is totally gonna employ some strangers under-the-table who haven't had a shower in  _days,_ and feed them. Maybe we'll even get a promotion!" 

Frustrated with the shop vendor, extremely hangry, and, most of all, upset from being disillusioned about how amazing the Quay should have been, Noctis kicked the sand as hard as he could. There wasn't even a certain place he had been walking to, and he had no ideas about their next move -- he just wanted something to eat.

"Hey, don't get mad at me for trying to give us some options. If you don't want to do that, maybe we could -- I don't know, go looking in the forest for some berries or something? I mean, if we can't find some that are safe to eat, we'll either get super duper high or die -- and we'd've died of hunger anyway. It's a win-win situation!" Prompto joked, trying to lighten Noctis' mood.

" _You_  can eat all the LSD berries you want -- I'm gonna look for the haven and go to sleep. Maybe things'll be different in the morning," Noctis grumbled, defeated. There was absolutely no way they were going to get to eat much tonight unless Noctis spent their last few gil.

He turned away from the beach and stalked toward the forest that surrounded Galdin Quay. There was just a little light left -- but not enough for the boardwalk lights to be left off. They needed to find this place, and fast; he said as much to Prompto, and the blonde immediately whipped out his tiny, beat-up phone. It didn't seem like Prompto owned anything that wasn't on its last legs -- not that Noctis was much better off.

"I don't have much battery left, but I can try to find where the Reddit guy had seen the haven in my screenshots. Let's hope I can dig it out of all my nudes..." He gave Noctis a playful side-eye, and Noctis couldn't help but return it. Prompto always knew what to say, what joke to make.

"Who would you even be sending them to?"

"Don't worry about it." Prompto answered with a teasing smirk.

 

Noctis and Prompto had wandered around the forest for what felt like forever, the latter scrolling endlessly on his phone to try and find the post with the directions to the haven. It had been a race against time: the sun wouldn't give its rays for much longer, and the gods only knew what sorts of daemons hid in the shadows of the southeast corner of the kingdom, so far from home. 

_We're gonna find out soon,_  Noctis mused as he pushed apart thickets of foliage to follow Prompto closely. It was nighttime, and they still hadn't found anywhere to sleep.

"Prompto," Noctis whispered, afraid to trigger anything; they were already pushing their luck by weaving through the trees. "We should just turn back. We can sleep on the beach or something, but I  _do not_  want to get mauled."

"Well, it's not like I want to, either! And if I could just find this stupid post --"

"Give it a rest, dude! It's too dark to see anything, and we're only going to get more lost than we already are!"

"We are  _not_  lost, don't even say that!" Prompto snapped, a hint of anxiety in his voice.

"Prompto. Right now, the boardwalk is _a-a-a-a-all_  the way back there." He pointed in the distance, though the boardwalk in question was hidden behind trees in front of trees. "I don't think the two of us even remember all the tiny turns we took. If we don't head back, we're going to be stuck here. You think anyone's gonna look for our bodies out here?"

"Noctis, stop it. Seriously." Prompto's voice had gone up two octaves and gotten small.

He had wanted to push it further, and not entirely of his own accord; he could barely  _think straight_  through the pangs of hunger that shot across his stomach or the strain on his muscles from walking for so long. Noctis was truly and thoroughly desperate, and he was jealous of the way it hardly seemed to affect Prompto -- as if he was numb to being this tired and hungry for hours on end.

The moonlight was weak, but he could at least see Prompto's walls lowering just a bit; there were lines on his face uncharacteristic of someone so young, bags hanging on his eyes -- eyes that had opened wide with fear. Noctis almost looked away with the guilt that ate away with him. At least some part of him was eating.

"I -- Sorry. I didn't mean to be mean. That's all I seem to be doing, huh?" He conceded, his hand hooking around the back of his neck.

Prompto stepped closer, just a little bit. "You're not... mean. You can be a huge asshole, sure, always messing up my hair, but... I've met some  _mean_  people. That's not you."

Noctis had been looking away, but his eyes shot straight up into Prompto's at that. The hand around his neck slowly fell as they stared at each other, and the orphan could suddenly notice how the pale light had softened Prompto's features and gave him an ethereal glow, how it shone on the dusting of freckles across high cheekbones, how it complemented pale pink lips. Most of all, it accentuated the violet in his eyes and the the fluffy blonde eyelashes that surrounded it and tapered in a way that was unbelievably perfect. Had Prompto always looked like that?

Those violet eyes looked away somewhere behind Noctis, and he could only assume that Prompto they shared the same shy feeling.

"Noctis..."

"Prompto," he answered, heart racing just a little.

"Noctis," Prompto repeated, just a little more slowly.

"Prom," Noctis settled, a little smile growing on his face at how stupid this all was -- and yet, how mesmerizing.

"Noctis --  _Noctis, run!"_  Prompto suddenly screamed. Noctis felt a hand clasp around his own, and suddenly, he was being pulled forward. When he looked behind him, there was a gigantic daemon clawing its way out of the core of the earth with huge hands and an even bigger sword making an ungodsly screeching roar.

They were going to die. This was it. 

Green and black sped past his vision, his heart pounded in his ears, rough branches scratched his skin as they ran through wild and closely-grown foliage. Every second brought a one-ton footstep closer and closer to them, and Noctis willed himself to succumb to the adrenaline, to run  _faster._

And then, everything suddenly... stopped.

He felt something  _pulling_  him somewhere, beckoning him closer. It send tendrils of warm through blood that ran cold with fear. Almost as if he could see it, Noctis sensed a trail of that warmth to follow; the darkness couldn't do anything to hide it.

Noctis interrupted Prompto's repeated exclamations of  _holy shit_  with a sharp tug to the right. He felt Prompto stumble, and then find his balance -- and soon, Noctis was the one leading the sprint away from the daemon who was charging after them.

Nothing else mattered in those few precious seconds; something seemed to overtake him, possess him, a strange  _longing_  that he had never felt before. He felt his chest start to tighten with the pure effort it took to keep going, the adrenaline starting to reach its peak, but it was okay. It was all okay, because he felt his heart skip a beat, felt  _something_  surging through his veins, pulsing stronger with every step they took, every step that got closer --

And there it was, hidden among spruce trees and tall, unruly hedges. Fireflies danced around the giant stone tomb, as if lighting the way for Noctis to come. He stopped to stare, chest heaving and eyes wide -- he was hesitant to go on, scared of what had overcome him.

Whether he wanted to or not, however, was no concern of Prompto's; Noctis felt himself fly forward again. 

Soon, his legs remembered the pressing and lethal problem behind them, and he clambered up to the giant expanse of rock, only a second behind Prompto.  There was only a slit of an entrance that seemed to descend deep into the earth -- but it was meant for one person at a time. The daemon shrieked again, the sound terrifying nesting birds out of their trees. Seeing that it had them cornered, it got into position for a final charge, its sword lifted behind it.

Prompto swore loudly and looked back at Noctis. This was their only shot at survival. 

The blonde had tried to step aside to allow Noctis to step in, but Noctis only grabbed his arm and shoved him inside (not without an indignant shout from Prompto). Having to shimmy his way through while running down unfamiliar stairs in the dark was a time-consuming task, judging by the snail's pace with which Prompto fought his way inside the crack deep enough to allow Noctis space. The noiret looked up at the Iron Giant, who had raised its sword to its full height, just about ready to swing, to slice Noctis in half and have him for dinner --

And then he felt Prompto's hand snatch the back of his shirt and yank.

Noctis nearly hit his head on the rock at he was dragged into the small crack of an entrance. The Iron Giant stopped mid-air, holding the sword above its head. It roared and then finished the job -- to its own avail. As soon as it had hit its sword against the rock, it was thrown backwards as if the rock itself had fought back. Noctis watched it happen with wide eyes and a chest that could hardly puff out with the inches of space he was allowed.

The climb down into a brightly-lit room didn't take long -- and it was then that Noctis and Prompto allowed themselves to bend over and register their close brush with death.

"Noctis -- Whatever the hell your last name is," Prompto panted, leaned against the wall with one hand on his heart. "What the  _fuck_  did you stop for? You realize you could have gotten us  _killed?!"_

"I-I don't know what -- I just wanted to come here," Noctis gasped, laying down on the floor. "I got scared, okay?"

"Oh,  _you_  were scared? No, yeah, an Iron-frickin'-Giant scares  _you,_  but not me. Because the entire world revolves around you!"

"I didn't mean it like that! There's something... something here, I... I don't know what, but you gotta help me find --"

"Okay, first off? What the hell could be more terrifying than a twenty-foot daemon coming after you? And second, what even  _is_  this place, Mr. Fulfilling-A-Prophecy?"

Noctis looked up at Prompto, and then around them. The walls were smooth, simple concrete, but between them, built right into the ground, was what seemed to be...

"A sarcophagus," he breathed, getting to his feet. Prompto's eyes went wide and he let out a small squeak.

"A-A  _what?_  Like -- Like, where you put a-a dead person?"

_Dead isn't the word to describe it,_  Noctis thought, walking up to it slowly. It hit him: this was the warmth he had been chasing. It was like a ball of fire that had been burning for centuries. It filled him up completely inside; his stomach was full, he felt invigorated, he felt...  _power_  course through his veins. He crept even closer, arm extended, as if there was something to anticipate --

" _You take one step closer to that tomb, I'll cut off your head and stick it on a pole right outside._ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "but author, there's no royal arms in galdin quay !!!" shhhhhhh don't worry about that  
> "but author, noctis and prompto would never be mean to each other !!!!!!" i sAID SHHH
> 
> who yelled at noctis (though it's probably p obvious lmao) ??? what was noct about to do ??????? am i sure that i can actually write a content-rich chapter by saturday ???? all will be revealed on the next episode of dragonball z kai
> 
> as always, please yell at me/with me in the comments <3 <3 !!! i love interacting with y'all it really really motivates me to keep writing this instead of reading over my cogsci notes lmao


	5. Computation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone has a great idea!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hoooooo boy !!! okay so this was super fun to write !!! but i still feel like !!! it's too slow !!! but knowing me that's just bc there's no angst yet lmao
> 
> we're gonna get there. don't worry. >:)
> 
> seems like these chapters are gonna take, like, a week and a half ?? and exams are next week ?? so that's gonna be fun ????

_Blue._

_A rich blue, a deep blue, an electric, powerful blue. He's surrounded by it, engulfed in it, it pumps through his veins and arteries and blessed him with life._

_There are voices in the edges of it -- but only whispers, shadows calling in tongues that he just can't make out no matter how hard he strains his hearing. It fills him with rage, fueled by the frustration of being unable to understand, to connect._

_It's a rage that needs to be expressed, materialized. And suddenly, like an answer to his prayers, there is something bright in the distance. It shines blindingly with that same wonderful hue, but somehow more pure. Next to it, everything else seems dimmer, unimportant. He takes one step closer. Then another. He walks faster, with a breakneck pace, as if that static light were going to go out in the blink of an eye, and with it, everything he'd ever wanted._

_He had never wanted anything more in his life than to reach it._

_And there he was, it was a foot away, all he had to do was reach out and grab it --_

With a sharp, deep gasp for dear oxygen, Noctis shot up and his eyes opened. His arm was sticking straight out.

"--  _Whoa_!" It was Prompto's familiar voice, somewhere off to the side.

Noctis looked around him, bewildered. There sure was a light, but it was a soft white, illuminating the large, ornate room. The floor was fully carpeted and richly colored and shiny polished wood furnishings gave the place a refined look. Prompto, who had very likely been sitting in the expensive armchair he was currently standing in front of, was staring at Noctis with wide eyes that had suddenly looked over at the other side of the room.

Following his line of sight, Noctis' gaze set on two new pairs of eyes. One pair, an earthy dark brown and with one eye adorned with a jagged scar, belonged to a man just as rugged as dangerous as them. He was  _ripped,_  and, judging by the eagle-themed arm tattoo that did little to divert attention away from the scars that littered his body, all with varying degrees of absolutely insane, he'd been his fair share of scraps. He had hardly flinched, but his crossed arms had fallen to either side of his body.

The other pair -- or should he say two pairs? -- icy green and calculating, resided behind thin-rimmed rectangular glasses. The outfit matched his look; a pinstriped shirt with virtually no wrinkles, expertly tailored slacks, and polished black dress shoes put edges in just the right places to give the man a sleek and deadly appearance. He was the one to take the first few steps toward Noctis.

"You've finally joined us. Are you alright?"

"Where -- Where am --" Noctis finally looked down at the bed he'd been tucked under and the ice pack that had started melting on the plush blue blanket. There was something important about the color blue, he was sure of it, he was sure he'd known  _exactly_  what it was, but the dream was slipping out of his fingers like quicksand -- and then, there was nothing.

"You're in the Galdin Quay hotel. You fell unconscious whilst we were still in the Royal Tomb."

"Fell un -- I passed out? But -- how did we -- the Giant --" At least he was remembering something; the walk through the forest at night, the Iron Giant, climbing into the tomb. But nothing, absolutely nothing, after that.

"Oh, that was a piece a cake. Big guy left his back wide open," the gladiator at the back gloated. His arms had crossed themselves again, and he was leaning against the peach wall. Sunlight streamed in behind him through a window, illuminating his long brown hair with a halo effect.

"Who... are you?" Noctis said, much more quietly.

The man in front of him --  _Specs,_  he decided even before he'd had a chance to answer the question -- stared at Noctis hard, like he was stripping away his flesh and exposing his bones. It was a split second of judgement, and Noctis hoped he'd been found not guilty for whatever crime he'd committed.

"Ignis Scientia," he responded at last. Noctis felt his shoulders relax; he didn't know they'd tensed. "And over there is Gladiolus Amicitia. We work for His Majesty, Regis Lucis Caelum CXIII. The father of your namesake... Noctis."

"Lucky we came across you guys," Gladiolus continued. "That Iron Giant doesn't usually show up so close to the Quay. It was terrorizing some civilians; you and Prompto were the perfect distraction for us to come in and attack."

 _Prompto,_ Noctis remembered, looking across the room at his best friend again. Prompto's attention was switching between each speaker, and it was still lingering on Gladiolus. His cheeks couldn't help coloring when he remembered that... completely stupid moment when they were in the woods. The way Prompto had looked was haunting, a memory that Noctis replayed in his head. It was probably just the lighting, he decided, willing himself to slow the beating of his heart.

Noctis turned back to Ignis, tried to piece together the new information. "So this was like -- like a mission?"

"Of sorts. This was one of the more extreme ones, but nothing that we aren't able to handle, I assure you." Despite his poker face, Ignis' voice had a hint of pride in it.

"But we weren't expecting to be carrying you around by the end of it." Gladiolus interjected, a slight edge to his voice.

Ignis' lips pursed -- the first sign of  _emotion_  in the guy's face. "No matter about that. Prompto's already filled us in on what the two of you were doing out there. Two bags of potato chips and a loaf of stale bread from Duscae to Galdin Quay?"

Noctis' stomach rumbled at the thought of even a single potato chip -- if Doritos were even made of potatoes. "Um. _Molding_  bread, but... Yeah."

"Noct we've talked about this, it was  _not_  molding, it was still good! You think I'd go and risk my neck for some moldy --" Prompto shut up very quickly when he realized he was talking about a  _stolen_  chunk of bread in front of people who worked for the king and could take down an Iron Giant all by themselves.

Ignis gave a bemused little smile. "Very well, then. I've prepared a meal for you and Prompto; it's just about done, but it needs to simmer a bit to capture the flavor."

His eyes couldn't help but widen. Not scraps, not a snack, but a full-fledged meal. And, being that his senses had been so occupied with establishing where he was, his olfactory sense finally switched itself on; the smell of well-cooked food wafted into his nostrils.

"Is that... fish?"

 

Within minutes, Noctis found himself seated at the small dining table that the hotel had supplied. He wondered how pricey a place must be for it to even have that.

Ignis came out of the kitchen balancing four plates on his arms, which were quickly distributed. Prompto's mouth visibly watered at the sight of a steaming fish surrounded by mountains of white rice and vegetables, garnished with thyme and positively dripping with gravy. Noctis couldn't blame him; as Ignis placed the last plate in front of him, Noctis felt the saliva building up beneath his tongue.

" _Bon apetit,_ " Ignis announced in an exceptional Tenebraean accent once he'd sat down at the table and picked up his own forks. The plate of hot, masterfully prepared food was no match for the empty stomachs of two teenage boys.

Ignis' seemed to hardly notice the loud scraping of fork and knife against porcelain, but Gladiolus pointedly stared at them, a surprised smile on his lips.

"Not sure if you guys noticed, but the fish is dead."

"Let them be, Gladio." The sharpness in Ignis' voice was hardly masked. 

"I'm not doing anything! They're just -- getting rice all over the table, they could stand to slow down just a bit."

Prompto froze mid-bite and then looked around at his plate. Sure enough, more than a few grains of rice had spilled onto the high-count thread of the table linen. His face went pink and he put down the fork (albeit with some hesitance) and immediately started scooping the rice into his hand.

"Prompto -- stop. Eat. I know you haven't eaten anything more than a few calories over the course of -- what was it? Oh, yes.  _Three days of walking._ " Ignis tone was slathered with anger and pointed directly at his partner.

Gladio's smile quickly turned into a frown. "And humans can go at least a week without eating anything. No one's taking the food away from them, but manners are important. I figured  _you'd_  be the first person to say something like that."

"Gladiolus," Ignis said slowly, scooping rice onto his fork as if this argument were not really happening, "How about I feed you my table scraps for three days while we walk back to Insomnia, and you tell me whether or not you'd like to continue the diet?"

"You're going to Insomnia?" Noctis asked, barely having chewed the food in his mouth. Sure, Gladiolus -- he wasn't sure if he was on the _Gladio_  name basis yet -- was big and absolutely terrifying, but he wasn't going to let that stop him from a good meal. Besides, he was almost done; minus the vegetables, of course.

Ignis eyebrows raised, as if he were surprised that he had mentioned it. "Er- yes, though I suppose that much was rather obvious. We did our duty to remove the Iron Giant, thanks to your help, and now we shall head back home."

"That's awesome, that's where me and Prompto are going!" He exclaimed. If they could travel with these guys for a few days, not only would they be safe from daemons, but have a full belly every night.

"Prompto and  _I._  And the former has already disclosed that information -- but I am afraid that we cannot bring two growing boys with us. It would be far too dangerous, and we do not have enough provisions to support four of us."

"But _Prompto and I_  don't need a lot of food. This is already a ton of it, we've both grown up on so much less. And Insomnia can't be that far now, right?"

"I'm afraid the Crown City is still a number of days away. Gladio and I also need to stop in Hammerhead on some official business; that would delay the trip even further. I'll see what I can do about acquiring some food for you both for the journey, but I'm afraid that we cannot travel together."

"That's okay," Prompto squeaked before Noctis could beg any further. He was putting the rice back onto the plate and taking his time with eating this time. He used the knife to push rice and vegetables onto his fork, just like Ignis. "We're super grateful for all your help already, and we'll be fine. We made it this far, right?"

Noctis looked over at Prompto next to him, eyes wide. This was too good an opportunity to pass up. He did not ever want to starve again like they had during this first half of the trip -- they could manage a few days in Hammerhead, wherever that was, and help out where they could.

But Prompto returned the narrowed look, and Noctis caught the message: don't overstay the welcome, don't look the gift horse in the mouth, and whatever other stupid proverbs were out there.

He looked back down at his food and bit the inside of his lip to keep himself from scowling. No money, no fishing rod, and a few days to Insomnia. This was going to be fun.

To comfort himself, he pushed the vegetables even further off to the side and continued eating the rice that was sinfully good; and Noctis felt its maker's eyes trained on him all the while.

"Sorry," he finally managed, concentrating his energy into gripping the fork and knife. "Prom's right, we're thankful for you guys saving our lives and feeding us and stuff. We'll be out of your hair tomorrow."

Ignis didn't answer for a time, just kept _staring._  It made Noctis a little more than uncomfortable.

"Unless -- Tonight works better?"

"Have you always refused to eat your vegetables?" The words came out slowly, and Noctis was afraid he'd been ruder than he'd thought.

"What? No, I was- I-I don't really like them, so I was saving them for the end." In actuality, he'd hoped that he'd be able to shove them onto Prompto's plate; no way was he eating anything green tonight, no matter how hungry he was. That was his one vice that drove Sania up a wall, he remembered.

"You don't like vegetables?" Ignis asked again, as if he needed to be sure.

"No," the teen answered, somehow feeling a little ashamed. "I mean, when it was necessary --"

"When it was necessary?" Specs was speaking faster now, chasing after something.

"During, like, hard times back -- back at home --"

"Hard times at home, hm? Where are your parents, Noctis?"

That made Noctis drop his dinnerware.

He sat straight up in the chair, glaring hard at the stranger across from him. Sure, this guy worked for the king and had done all this nice stuff for them -- that didn't give him the right to stick his nose into business that wasn't his. Triggered and defensive, Noctis got up from his seat and stormed away from the dinner table and out of the hotel.

"Noct -- Noct, hold up!" Prompto called, the sound of a chair scraping backwards accompanying it.

 

"What the hell was that, Ignis?" Gladio snapped at him.

"Gladio, I'm going to need you to listen to me  _very_  carefully."

Ignis didn't know how he'd gotten the idea -- let alone where he found the sheer  _audacity_  for it. But everything... Everything made so much sense.

Call him a sucker for coincidence, but the whole event had been so perfect. They found him in front of a Royal Tomb. He had the same raven black hair and sapphire eyes. He didn't eat his vegetables.

And he had no parents, as to be assumed from the way that Noctis up and left.

Gods, even the name was there.

Gladiolus leaned back in his chair, arms crossed as they were so prone to do when he was curious. "Alright, what is it? What 'new recipe' did you come up with in that big head of yours that made a kid cry?"

"You and I both know what the politicians and journalists are buzzing about, just beneath all the big headlines: His Highness grows weaker every day. He doesn't make as many public appearances as he did when he took the throne back at the end of the Insurrection. There's speculation, there's assumptions being made, there's  _concern._ " Ignis got to his feet and started pacing, hands behind his back. He needed to think this through out loud, with someone sane to vet his inferences.

"Yeah," the other responded with a hint of worry in his own voice. That was good. That meant this whole thing was  _necessary._  "My dad said that... Well, he's not entirely sure yet, but King Regis can't really summon weapons anymore. Takes too much out of him."

"Precisely. The Crystal needs someone to confer its magic unto, to alleviate some of the burden on His Majesty. Otherwise, it'll be the Insurrection all over again; daemons running about, famine in all corners of the kingdom, and a villain on the throne."

"Don't remind me. Almost lost Iris," Gladiolus recollected, a dark look coming over his face. "Problem is, King isn't looking for love right now. Dad said he feels guilty for not being able to take back the throne sooner. All those people that died... He feels responsible. All his energy is in making Lucis what it was before the Insurrection, before the Independents were ever a thing. And besides, after Queen Aulea and the Prince..."

"There are rumors," Ignis continued. "I know not for the Queen, but for the Prince? His Majesty said that he ran away -- not that he was murdered, too."

"Those are completely baseless," Gladio barked. "What, you think a five-year-old could have outrun an entire army of Independents? They had their best men in the castle, and Noctis wouldn't have known the first thing about escaping."

"I know that," Ignis admitted. "A sheltered five-year-old has slim chance of escaping trained assassins, I've made my peace with that. But the point is, Gladiolus, that the body has never been found. Regis lives and breathes for the kingdom, I'm sure that he's heard such rumors. So here is the point of deliberation: King Regis never saw his son die with his own eyes, not like he did the Queen. No one has solid proof that the prince is dead. We need an heir."

"So, what? What all that have to do with those  _kids_?"

Ignis paused at the corner of the wall and stared hard. It all made sense in his head, everything made sense in his head, but... This was different. This was _risky._  If they couldn't pull it off, if something went wrong... Still, they had to try.

"The boy. His  _name_  is Noctis, he has the same look, he's roughly how old the prince would be -- He even dislikes vegetables, just like the real Noctis!"

"No -- Ignis, _this_ from  _you?"_  There was the sound of Gladiolus turning in his seat to face Ignis' back, and Ignis could picture the look of surprise on his stupid face. "Are you kidding me?"

"It's not incredibly far-fetched."

"Oh-hoh, yes, it is! Did you hear the way he talked to you? Like you didn't save his life and then make him some grub to boot? He flat-out demanded that we take him to Insomnia with nothing to give in return! Hell, that kid probably wouldn't know the difference between a butter knife and a sword if one stabbed him in the side. We'd be picking up his slack, and he knows that. He'd take advantage."

"Yes, but we can teach him manners. He'll act differently if he knows he'll be meeting with the king."

"The king, Igg, he's a whole 'nother problem! What's he gonna say when you bring some Duscaean brat to him, claiming that that's his kid? You know how many other people came crawling around, screaming that some snot-nosed rat was the Crown Prince? You gonna put him through that again?"

"The difference between us and those gold-diggers is that we are not doing this for a reward." Ignis had spun back now, and their countenances had switched; Ignis' arms were crossed with cold calculation, and Gladio's arms were open, ready for a fight. " _Somebody_  has to be the prince. It's not for His Highness' pleasure, it's for the good of Lucis, so that there will be someone with the Crystal's power to protect it!"

Gladio finally stood up, and he shot Ignis an angry look. "The Crystal. Even if you manage to  _lie_  to the king, you can't lie to the Crystal and the gods. They'll know who he really is. The Crystal has been a part of the  _Caelum_  family for eons -- no one else. This'll all be for nothing."

Ignis hadn't forgotten about that -- how could he? -- but it was just going to have to be a bridge to cross another time. And that unsettled him deeply: he hated  _not knowing,_  not having a set, foolproof plan. 

"There's options there, too," was how he decided to phrase it. "There may be something that Lady Lunafreya can do. King Regis may become so inclined to focus his attention on himself and having more children, once he had a son to share kingly duties with. The fact of the matter is that Lucis needs an heir, if only to put their hope in him, and we have a perfect dupe standing right outside."

The anger in Gladio's face lingered, but then slowly dissipated. It turned into concern, worry. "Ignis... I just don't know if we can pull it off. We're talking about -- what, a week until we'll reach Insomnia? We'd have to teach him everything about the Caelums, about Lucis, about -- about _everything_."

Ignis gave him a wry smile and adjusted his glasses. "That's nothing you and I can't handle."

 

Noctis didn't know where he was going, only that he needed to storm around to blow off steam -- somehow, that was a common theme of the night.

Prompto had tailed him the entire time, saying nothing but keeping close. Not only did he have a funny way of knowing exactly what to say, but also exactly how to act. It was borderline unfair.

They had ended up behind the hotel, and before them was a long pier facing the infinite expanse of soft black waves that was the sea. He walked right up to the end and sat on the edge. Prompto knelt beside him, not so close up to the edge, but enough that their shoulders knocked together. Looking down at the water, at how calmly it rolled along into the great unknown, Noctis felt... lost.

What was he even doing here?

Everything that had happened in one single day had him reeling: the fight with Prompto, the walk to the Quay, the disappointment, the forest, the tomb.

The tomb...

There was something there. He knew it, he felt it in his bones, there was something that Noctis had  _remembered..._  But when he tried to think back on it, on his dream, he only got a headache. Maybe... that's all it had been. A dream that meant nothing, a fervor that had been fueled by hunger and exhaustion and nothing more. Who did he think he was, going around Royal Tombs and thinking that there was something there for  _him,_  some unimportant hick from some unimportant town in some unimportant dot on a map of Lucis?

"You know I was found in a pile of trash?" He whispered to Prompto.

The blonde's shoulder's jumped against his, as if he had been surprised to be spoken to. And then he felt them sink, and Noctis could feel _that look_  against his skin. He knew it all too well; when he was a kid, walking around Duscae trying to sell his fish like the word was scrawled across his forehead.  _Orphan._  It was the only reason he'd sold anything; when he thought back on it, the fish had seemed huge to him -- but they were probably scrawny little things, not worth the trouble it had taken to fish them. People had bought them not because they thought the fish were worth the price (no matter how modest the price was), but because they  _pitied the poor little orphan boy._

"I don't know where. My matron won't tell me, thinks I'll try to go back there or something. I don't really remember it, anyway. All I remember is... The car ride from wherever it was to Duscae was _super_  long. And the driver -- he didn't have any music on or anything, the whole time was silent. But when I got there? Man, I loved it. It was so quiet, and -- and I guess wherever I was was too loud, or busy, or something, just... I thought it was the best. But Sania? She... She always brought it up. The government would come over, check the place out, make sure everything was in order. And she would show me to them and go, 'This one's Noctis,  _poor thing,_  they found him thrown out with the garbage.'  _Thrown out,_  Prompto. Like I was -- broken, or not worth the trouble, but -- but they didn't --  _They didn't want me._ "

It all came tumbling out unbidden, but Noctis couldn't find a reason to stop. This had all been so much, and he just couldn't handle it in his brain. Not alone.

Prompto said nothing for a while, just took a deep breath and let it out slow. Noctis could see his face in the water, though it rippled and distorted slightly. His eyes looked sad.

"My folks used to work in Insomnia. My dad was an editor for  _The Insomnian Times_  and my mom was a corporate lawyer. So you can imagine they were never home. And that was okay, they just sent me money and I would order pizza or something -- and you can imagine the delivery guy's face when he came up to the door with, like, three large pizzas and there was, like, a seven-year-old handing him fifty gil. So, yeah, I was seven, and I'm used to getting the mail and sorting the bills from the business letters and store ads and stuff like that. I start doing that when I get home from school one day, and there's this... letter that I don't know who it's from. And I was a pretty good reader, you know, so my parents are cool with me opening the mail and catching the key words, because I won't know what, like,  _tax evasion_  means, so it's fine if I read something I'm not supposed to. Well. You know what was on the front, in big ol' letters with this picture of a mom and her kid? _Tips from houseparents: Explaining adoption to your child."_

Noctis snapped his head to look at Prompto. He was still staring at the water, a distant look in his eyes and a deathly stillness about him. The only thing that let Noctis know he was still alive was the way his hands shook.

"I never brought it up. They never said anything. And then the Insurrection came to an end and the King started his witch hunt for any Independents that were still in power. Turns out my parents had been supporters. Had to move to Duscae because no one would hire them in Insomnia. And it was... absolute hell in Gyrum. It was just the beginning of  _his_  reign, there was barely any food that didn't cost a soul... So now my dad works as a janitor in the supermarket and my mom works at the Crow's Nest. Between eleven-hour shifts and barely making enough to put a piece of spoiled meat on the table, there was never a right time to talk about it."

Prompto seemed smaller when he'd finished.

Noctis stared at him, just briefly, absolutely astonished. Prompto had the chance. He'd had the chance to know everything, even if his parents had hardly been home, he'd had the chance to  _ask._  And he threw it away. Noctis would kill to be in his shoes, to be able to ask someone what they knew about his past.

He couldn't help but chuckle mirthlessly. He wanted to be jealous of Prompto, he knew he should be, but he couldn't help feeling... relieved somehow. After all, when you put the pieces together, it made complete sense that he and Prompto would get along so well; they were both orphans who took what they could get in life. It was ridiculously depressing and incredibly ironic that two orphans from the same middle-of-nowhere area should meet and try to take on the Crown City.

Prompto must have felt the same way. His quiet laughter soon mingled with Noctis, until both voices dwindled into a gentle oblivion. Noctis fell back against the wood of the pier so that he could look up at the stars. They were infinite in number and in distance. Those had been the same stars that he'd been born under, that his parents (wherever or whoever they were) had been born under, that so many generations of all walks of life had been born under. And he was... small. But that was okay. So were most other people who had ever existed.

"So, orphan to orphan," Noctis said, finally, after lingering in the comfortable silence. "What d'ya say we stick together in Insomnia? I wanna find my parents, and the best place to go would be the place where the headquarters for, like, every single government branch is. Maybe we could find yours, too."

Then Noctis felt that  _tension_  again, the same one from the night before. He'd pressed that button without meaning to.

"Wait -- I didn't mean, like -- Whatever you're gonna do, I don't need to know, Prom, I was just talking out of my ass --"

"What, so you don't want to stick together?" Prompto answered. He shift closer to Noctis, his face lowered directly above his.

Noctis looked him in the eyes, and was again struck by how... how different he looked when the moonlight hit him. The sky was already showing hints of lightening, but that did nothing to obscure how the stars seemed to frame Prompto's face perfectly. The blonde hair fell perfectly, and his face was suddenly getting a little too warm for his liking.

"Uh -- I meant -- Yeah, I do-"

"Then we'll stick together." Prompto placed a hand -- meant to be a chaste and friendly gesture, Noctis was sure -- on his arm, and then looked behind them. Just like that, the moment was gone.

Noctis bent his back so that he could look behind him from his laid out position, and saw the upside-down forms of Ignis and Gladiolus. His teeth clenched when he saw Specs.

"What do you want?" He snapped, still angry to have his business trespassed by him.

"I have a proposition."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bless you ignis for FINALLY GETTING US TO THE MAIN PLOT POINT  
> it only took... four chapters....
> 
> things will happen faster !!! and there is absolutely no reason for angst next chapter but you know what? we're gonna try to fit it in there. in some fashion. some way.
> 
> of course thank you for reading !!!!! <3 <3 <3


	6. Meant To Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noctis makes another decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all i'm so sorry
> 
> i had a prelim each week for two weeks and i'm literally the stupidest bitch on god's green earth so i needed to study my ass off and then i had. no inspiration for this chapter. so here we are, three weeks late :)
> 
> thank you for continuing to comment and give kudos !!!!!! it makes me feel wholesome inside uwu

"You want me to do  _what?"_

There was no way to have been sure of what Ignis wanted. Noctis wasn't even sure why he'd agreed to hear him out. But there were a  _lot_  of weird things that were going on that night, and Noctis was sure he had about two neurons that weren't driven to exhaustion (but sure as hell were on the brink). He couldn't even muster the energy to try and think his way through what it was that  _Ignis,_  a man who worked for the king himself, could cook, had money, and had  _style_ , would want from a dirty and starved eighteen-year-old who hardly had the brainpower to tell his left from his right.

So when he sat down on the couch and Ignis began this long speech about the importance of working for the common good of the country and other stuff that sounded like preamble of a history textbook, Noctis felt his eyelids get too heavy and his head slide onto Prompto's shoulder beside him. His eyes had shot wide open when Ignis had finally gotten to the point: to take the place of his late Highness, Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum CXIV.

Gladiolus shifted from the wall he was leaning on to come closer. "Listen, kid, he makes a good point, and Iggy's intuition is nothing to turn your nose up at. He's right, we need this as a country. The Insurrection was hard on everyone, rich and poor. We need someone to unite us."

"Hold on --"

"You'd fit the bill. Of course, we would have to teach you the history of the Lucian bloodline and some  _table manners_  before presenting you to the king." Ignis continued. "Perhaps Cid could give us a few pointers on how best to break this to His Majesty."

"But --"

"Just think about it, kid. You'll be a prince."

" _Wait!"_  Noctis shouted. He'd gotten the attention he wanted. 

He looked at Prompto next to him for a split second and knew there would be no help there. The blonde looked just as dumbfounded as he felt.

Noctis was hardly even sure he'd heard Ignis right. Act as a prince?  _Him?_  If he could hardly be trusted to cross with the light at a walkway, he couldn't be trusted with potentially being the heir of the most powerful kingdom in the world. And that wasn't even counting how much he'd stutter trying to talk to the  _king_  of said kingdom.

He was definitely too tired for this.

"I-I don't, uh -- I'd need some time to at least, like - think about it, y'know? It's been a super long night, I couldn't give you a straight answer."

Gladio frowned at him and crossed his arms. His biceps bulged, and Noctis couldn't help but think about what would happen if he said no. "Think about what? You said it yourself, you're headed to Insomnia anyway -- and being a prince isn't all too shabby."

"Let him be, Gladio. Noctis is right, it's been a long night. But know this," Ignis conceded with a quick adjustment of his glasses, "your decision has to come by morning. We cannot wait for you."

Noctis swallowed hard and nodded. Great. An ultimatum that would have him up all night. Who didn't love those?

 

Long after Ignis had led them to the room that was supposed to have been Gladio's (which wasn't given away without a small argument), Noctis was still laying spread-eagle on the bed and trying to think this whole thing through.

It kept boiling down to two scenarios: if he said no, Gladio might beat him up, but he'd still get to Insomnia (provided he didn't die of starvation). He'd probably get a little job as a cashier or something, and then ask around a police station or something and try and find out where he came from. 

If he said yes, then he'd definitely get to Insomnia on a full belly, but would have to meet with the godsdamned king. Then Regis would give him one look and send him on his way. Gladio and Ignis might be fired. But they were capable, they could find something else to go on if Regis didn't blacklist their names all across Insomnia -- or even Lucis, for that matter. But either way, he'd be freed up to look for his family.

But there was always the off chance that the entire thing might work and Noctis would find himself with a crown on his head and "Prince" in front of his name. He didn't want to think about what he'd do if that ever happened; just the thought made him nervous.

"Prom, what do you think?"

Noctis had been looking up at the ceiling, but finally craned his neck to look over at his friend --  _best_  friend, he corrected himself.

"It's not up to me, Noct. It's your decision." He was brushing his hair in the small vanity and trying out the complimentary one-use hair products that had piled up in the bathroom.

"Don't say it like that. I don't want this to be, like, a thing where it's all about me. The plan was for you and me to go to Insomnia, not for me to go be a fake prince. So what you've got to say is important."

"I wouldn't be hanging around a prince, anyway. And definitely not Regis' kid. Or anywhere near that stupid Citadel, really." There was an edge to Prompto's voice, another wall of defense that Noctis had yet to scale.

"You think  _I_  wanna be? And besides, it's not like I'm gonna convince the king."

"I dunno, man. Ignis made some good points -- the whole thing is in Regis' self-interest. And if it's for Regis' benefits, he's sure to go through with it."

"What do you mean by that?" 

Prompto didn't answer for a second, but Noctis could see his tense features relax with surprise. "Uh -- Nothing. Listen, it's a huge risk, but... all I'm gonna say is consider all your options. You'll know what to do."

That gave Noctis pause. It seemed that Prompto's vague answers would be no help.

But he hardly had the chance to bounce any more ideas off of him. The blonde glanced at the clock and jumped when he saw the time -- it was nearly midnight, and yet, Prompto was scrambling to grab his pathetic excuse for a jacket.

"What- Where are you going?"

The other's head swiveled around as if he'd forgotten that Noctis was there. "Uh -- Just -- a run -- down the beach. Yeah! It's, uh, prime running weather and time right now. Circadian rhythms and the hypothalamus and stuff. I'll be back, um, sometime before it's too late. See ya!" And just like that, he slipped out -- but he was very careful about closing the door behind him as quietly as possible.

By that time, Noctis had missed his opportunity to ask who goes running in the middle of the night -- but then again, he didn't live the runner's lifestyle. Maybe that was a new fad.

Either way, he mused, laying his head back down to contemplate again, he had his own fish to fry. Prompto would be safe so long as he stayed within the city lights.

 

Prompto hated being up this late. He was an early bird -- always up with the sun, and not awake too much longer after it had set. So, in short, all the activity of the night had been more than a little energetically taxing.

But this... this was more important than his sleep cycle. This was a matter of the public, of the people. Whatever he was feeling didn't matter when he had a kingdom to help save.

At least, that's what he tried to tell himself as his anxiety flared walking back into the dark forest that he and Noct had gotten lost in a couple hours ago. He was sure that the person he was meeting wouldn't have gone too far inside. 

But, as he followed the beaten path deeper and deeper through the thick trees, he didn't see anything but the blackness of night and shadows.

"Prompto, my dear, you walked right past me." A honey-laden voice purred from somewhere out of Prompto's peripheral vision. The fright it gave him nearly made him scream. The lips on the lightly bearded face curled into a mocking smile.

"So sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."

"S-Sir! I -- I wasn't scared, I just -- didn't see you."

"Yes, yes, nothing scares  _you._ "

Prompto looked at the ground, wishing that his pale skin didn't give away his embarrassment so easily; he felt his cheeks get hot.

"Now, did you do as I asked of you?"

"Yes, sir. Noctis is in the hotel. The only thing is that, uh -- there's a. Well. Complication, kinda."

"A complication?" His superior's honey voice was suddenly tinged with poison, masked as curiosity.

"Um... Well, Ignis had this idea, right? He was saying that since Regis is old and he's  _trying_  to look after the kingdom and everything, he hasn't had time for an heir. And -- and he said that Noctis looks like the kid prince, and that they -- I dunno, I guess it's suddenly  _rare_  for someone not to like vegetables, so he wants -- He was thinking --"

"To have the pauper become the prince."

Prompto swallowed hard with fear; every letter of the sentence was dangerous, calculating.

"I-I'm gonna try to talk Noctis out of it so he doesn't ruin the plan --"

" _Ruin_  the plan? Dear Prompto, this is exactly what the plan aimed to succeed."

The blonde looked up into the officer's face with surprise and confusion. No one could have foreseen Ignis' bright idea, not even him. There was no way that their original plan was going to work with Noctis being groomed as the new prince of Insomnia.

"It's simple," he continued. "Our Noctis learns the ways of a prince during your journey -- the family history, the things that the little prince did and did not like, his manners, etcetera, etcetera. Should he manage his way to the king's side, you would have been the crucial piece. Help him, Prompto. Make him a prince, make him a king -- and give him the Independent philosophy. Who could object? A Lucis Caelum -- as far the public would know -- would sit the throne, and he would be the center of the Independents. Noctis will destroy the Crystal and give birth to a kingdom independent of the gods' oppressive rule, free to rule themselves."

Bright blue eyes widened as all the pieces fell into place. This new plan would work. Making Noctis an Independent seemed as easy as sliced bread -- and Ignis would get him on the throne. A true Independent king.

"Chancellor... Do you think we could pull it off?"

Chancellor Izunia's amber eyes glinted with the wide smile that spread across his face. "Why, my sweet Prompto, you would doubt me?"

 

Noctis had barely slept a wink all night. He was awful with making his own decisions, still tossing and turning even as Ignis had informed him breakfast would be ready in fifteen minutes.

They were all waiting for an answer. They were all waiting for Noctis to figure out what he wanted from his life -- even though he was still coping with having decided to run away with Prompto.

So when he came out of his bedroom with dark bags under his eyes, he tried not to say anything to or look at anyone. Noct slipped into a chair at the breakfast table and stared pointedly at his multiple pieces of neatly presented silverware.  _If I did choose to go with Ignis, it'd take me a while to figure out which ones of these I'm supposed to even use._

But no one had spoken to him throughout most of breakfast -- not Ignis as he laid out the mouthwatering meal of eggs Benedict, pancakes, waffles, and Accordian home fries; not Gladiolus as he helped to share out the food and sparked up a friendly conversation with Prompto.

Noctis knew it was coming, though. He looked at the forks again. Choosing the one that complies with table etiquette rules would send the message that he was ready to go to Hammerhead. If he grabbed whichever one fit the function of being able to shovel food into his mouth, contrastingly, it'd mean that he was going straight to Insomnia with Prompto.

He had only been vaguely aware that everyone else had picked up a knife and fork and started eating; he was preoccupied with being transfixed on the glint of sunlight off of the head of the butter knife.

"Noct, unless you're planning on eating with your hands, you should probably grab something to eat with already," Gladio chuckled, already halfway through his eggs.

"Yes. I hope you know that there's not any pressure for you to eat or not. What we need to discuss can wait until after you've put some food in your stomach," Ignis added.

"I -- I didn't mean it like that, I wasn't trying to be rude or anything --"

"Noct, if you're gonna be a prince, you can't be apologizing to other people. You know what they say, royalty's never in the wrong."

Noctis looked at his best friend with wide eyes Did he think that Noctis had been able to choose so easily?

"Easy there, tiger," Gladio said soothingly to Prom. "You see the look on his face? Kid doesn't know what he wants to do."

"Oh. Uh, I didn't know, sorry. I thought by now... Never mind." Prompto said awkwardly, switching his attention to cutting through a waffle.

The silence was loud and pregnant now. They all wanted to know, he felt it. Gods, he wished he had an answer for them.

Noctis picked up his fork and moved around his home fries.  _Okay,_  he thought,  _what got me right here is following my gut. Prompto was a sign the first time. Maybe he's acting as a sign again. So open your mouth, and whatever comes out first is what's right for you._

He took a shaky breath, parted his lips, cleared his throat --

"Um. Yeah, no, he's right. A prince or whatever doesn't, like... say sorry to people. Guess I've got a lot to learn, huh?"

The table froze, and Noctis watched all their eyes shoot to stare at him. His face got red with the embarrassment of having the spotlight on him.

And then they all smiled.

"It's settled then," Ignis said, not without a strong hint of happiness in his voice. "We're off to Hammerhead to meet Cid Sophiar, one of the king's oldest friends."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah, trash jesus loves helping me sow the seeds of angst...
> 
> we're off to hammerhead !!! i'm excited to write this one !!! maybe we'll be up by thursday lmao


	7. Learn to Do It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noctis starts to learn about himself. The prince? Himself? ????

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so. here we are. a month late. :)
> 
> had two biology tests that i decided to study my ass off for, and then whenever i had a minute to write, i had writer's block, and long story short is this got put on the backburner. but i didn't forget about it !!!!! i want to finish this so bad. it's kind of on my bucket list :(
> 
> thanks for sticking with me anyway !! next chapter is gonna be fun (read: will be uploaded sooner) i promise ;)

A week. That's how long it was supposed to take them to make it to Insomnia. Seven days for Noctis to try and make it up to snuff, to become the prince that Ignis, Gladiolus, and Prompto wanted him to be.

Not incredibly nerve-wracking at all.

Right after he'd agreed to the plans, he mentally kicked himself in the ass. While Ignis cleaned up breakfast faster than any man alive, Noctis was debating his options for backing out of it. And, as they walked down the boardwalk to get into Ignis' and Gladio's car, he was dreading even the thought of presenting himself before the king and stammering at every question posed to him.

But... despite how his hands shook as he envisioned the ginormous Citadel towering above him, he couldn't say that he necessarily regretted saying yes. So far, he and sticking to pre-made plans weren't on good terms -- and he kind of liked it that way.

"What's going on in that small lil' head of yours, huh? Trying to figure out one plus one? I'll give you a hint -- you can use your fingers," Prompto teased, throwing an arm around Noctis. Decidedly, there were other things Noctis liked -- like how each of his hair follicles came to attention from being in such close proximity to Prompto, or how he wore that lopsided smile on his face, or how he smelled like the hair stuff he'd used from the night before. Mainly, he just liked how close Prompto was, even if it meant that the muscles that weren't in use for walking were kept deathly still.

"Shut up! I just... zoned out. But I'm sure one plus one is, like, quantum physics for you," Noctis quipped back, unable to resist Prompto's infectious smile.

"You can't even spell quantum!"

"Boys," Ignis interrupted before Noctis could be embarrassed by his sudden realization that quantum was a little hard to spell. "There'll be none of this sort of arguing during our trip. Noctis needs to learn how to conduct himself like a prince, and having him engage in these sorts of banters will do him no good."

"Hear that, Prom? You can't talk to me like that."

Prompto had opened his mouth to fight back, but a side-glare from Ignis shut it down quick. Noctis could only chuckle -- he sure was taking a shine to Ignis' fluid strictness and ability to intimidate.

"I'll get you back later," Prompto whispered just as they came towards the end of the boardwalk. The parking lot was in full view now, and there was one expensive car which stood out like a sore thumb amongst its more modest counterparts. The sun glinted brightly over a sleek, jet black exterior and windows that were nearly as dark as the car. That was all Noctis could see, but he felt Prompto tense next to him right before sprinting forward.

" _Is that your car!?"_  Prompto shrieked, flying right past Ignis and Gladio. He didn't even wait for Ignis' "Yes, but hold on;" by the time the three of them reached the parking lot, Prompto had already inspected every inch of the luxury sedan. He had his nose pressed up against the black smoked window, presumably trying to get a glimpse at the leather seats when Gladio nudged his arm.

"You like cars, huh?"

It was very clearly a feat for Prompto to turn his face away from the window long enough to give Gladio a nod in response. "There's none of them like these in Duscae, just a bunch of rust buckets! This is the coolest car I've ever seen!"

"Well, if Noctis can convince His Majesty of being his kid, we'll be driving around in  _way_  nicer conditions."

" _The Regalia,_ " Ignis recalled, almost wistfully. "Now, there's a fine car if there ever was one. Smart technology, bulletproof wheels and windows, an engine made by Cid himself... Well, we'll cross that bridge when we get there," he finished, fishing the keys out of his pocket and unlocking the doors.

Prompto took a deep breath before stepping into the back seat, but Noctis was still reeling. " _I'm gonna get a car?"_

 

* * *

 

Noctis' attention so far into the drive had been captivated by how quickly the world around him had passed in a car. They zipped past lush green grass and tall mountains, leaving the white-sand beach of Galdin Quay behind him. It all felt so...  _distinct_ somehow. Maybe this was the same highway that the orphanage had shipped him down. Maybe he had come this way with his parents once. The possibilities were endless, and he figured that, with nothing else to do, it wouldn't hurt to dream while Ignis, Gladio, and Prompto chatted.

The dreaming didn't last very long, though. Just as Noctis rested his head against the window to try and gave himself a headache trying to will himself into recalling a memory, he heard Gladio call his name.

"So, Noct, you lived in Duscae your whole life?" Gladio sounded nonchalant, almost hesitant.

"Uh, yeah. Whole time," he answered stupidly, having been taken completely off guard. It had taken him a moment to register that this was probably a chance to have an actual conversation with Gladio since the night before.

Gladio still gave him a soft smile. "You'll get to see it again, you know. When you're a prince, you get to do almost anything you want."

 _When you're a prince._  That's right; there was no point in Noctis' dreaming about where he might have come from. Not when Noctis had a whole lot of learning to do to become someone he wasn't. Instead of wishing for the memories that he'd never remember, he was meant to forget Duscae's rolling hills and valleys, poverty, and Sania, and create memories about places he had never seen and people he had never met. "That all depends on me becoming a prince. And I... 'forgot' that I ever was."

Thick brown eyebrows furrowed for a moment, held together by a thought, and then released. "Try this: lay back and close your eyes."

Noctis frowned at him. "Why?"

"Just do it."

What this was supposed to do, Noctis had to clue -- but he did it anyway. He laid his head back on the smooth leather, facing up at the roof, and let his eyes drop. He felt the sun warm his cheeks and tuned in to the soft rev of the car's engine. He could practically  _feel_  the melatonin seeping out of his brain.

"Imagine another time, another world. And in that time and place, way, _way,_  out in Insomnia, you were born in a palace by the sea."

And now he was getting a bedtime story. From Gladio. Not weird at all.

But then again, he was in no position to tease -- not when every muscle on Gladio's body was thicker than Noctis' fist. So it was all he could do to picture a big city -- or at least, the busiest city his imagination could manifest -- with a vast ocean surrounding it on nearly all sides, and a gigantic castle right in the middle.

"A palace by the sea," Noctis echoed, the scene prominent in his mind's eye.

"When you turned three, you rode horseback for the first time."

Noctis scrunched up his nose. "You can ride horses at three years old?"

" _You_  did," Ignis confirmed. "A white horse named Romeo."

"And you threw the  _worst_  tantrums!"

"And terrorized the poor cook."

 _Now that sounds more like me,_  he thought to himself. He tried picturing himself as a little boy again, running around endless sets of castle stairs and yelling for candy. "I was... wild, huh?"

"Wrote the book!" Gladio laughed.

"But you'd behave when your father gave this look," Ignis interjected. 

Noctis felt Prompto lean on his shoulder and whisper, "Sounds like a cool long-forgotten past to me." 

"And we've quite a lot to teach you about it," Ignis said, making Prompto jump. "In however little time we may have."

 

Noctis' eyes had never been closed so long without him having fallen asleep -- there was no way he could when Gladio and Ignis were filling his head with a million stories and facts about little prince Noctis and the Lucian bloodline.

He'd found out that Ignis was supposed to be his advisor, and Gladio his shield, which meant that they had spent hundreds of hours looking after the prince. In between facts about Lucis Caelum history, Ignis told tales of Noctis' picky appetite, spoiled mannerisms, and escapades throughout the Citadel; Gladio exasperatedly recalled how Noctis would hardly ever want to do even the most basic exercises if they cut into his frequent nap times. 

Prompto and Noctis found themselves laughing at every new story over the next few hours, but Noctis still couldn't help but feel increasingly uneasy. The stories were fun, a nice change of pace, even, but he didn't see how any of this would be able to  _really_  prove to the king that he was his long lost son. And it seemed like Ignis and Gladio were avoiding something, using all these stories as a band-aid to cover up what was really important.

After recovering from a new bout of laughter incited by a story of Noctis getting lost in the Citadel, Noctis cleared his throat. The car was silent for a short second, as if everyone could sense that there was something he wanted to say. It wasn't right to be asking so soon, not when the advisor and the Shield were recalling such happy memories, but if this was going to be a successful hoodwinking, Noctis had to know.

"So, uh... Is there anything about... His -- I mean, my birthday that I should...?"

The silence quickly turned loud and sad.

Ignis had been smiling at Noctis through the front mirror between watching the road, but those steely green eyes had stayed glued to the front and the smile died. Gladio, who had turned in his seat to look at Noctis and Prompto, shifted himself back to facing forward.

"I... don't think anyone will ask about that. We can come up with the story later," Gladio answered after a long while.

"No, Gladio, he's right. That might be one of the questions Cid will ask him if he's to really determine that Noctis is the real prince," Ignis objected. With a deep sigh and a slightly tighter grip on the wheel, Ignis began:

"On your birthday, we held a ball. You refused to go to bed, but we got you in there by the grace of the gods, and you fell asleep. The Independents infiltrated the Citadel. The procedure was that we do it as discreetly as possible; the Shield would hold the Citadel, there would be a maximum of two Glaives with his and her Majesties, and Gladio and I were to see you safely to the getaway car they were in. We had done as much... But somehow, maybe the driver was a suicide bomber, I don't know, but either way, the getaway car had been planted with a bomb. Only your father survived, but he was soon ambushed, as if they were expecting that he would. He was fighting them off despite being badly injured, but then you came out of the secret escape door. He told you to run, and you did. No one ever saw you again."

Noctis listened with held breath. As much as he didn't want to, his mind played the scene in his head: a dark night, an exploded car, dead bodies. It made his skin prickle, made the hair stand up on his arms, made him want to shake and cry. He instinctively reached for the necklace under his shirt, if only to be in contact with a familiar and comforting thing.

"And -- And from there, I'd talk about... What I actually remember? Like, the orphanage and everything?" He still couldn't bring himself to mention the whole  _pile of trash_  thing.

"Yeah. But I don't think you should bring the birthday story up with the king; it'll only bring back bad memories for him." Gladio said quietly.

"He's never been quite the same since he lost his wife and son. Although, to lose them like he did, I don't blame him." Ignis added.

The cold that the tale had left Noctis with was proof enough of that.

 

* * *

 

Even with a car, Hammerhead was far; Noctis could only imagine how long the walk would have been.

They'd stopped for a night at a cheap, dingy little motel -- but they hadn't slept much in it. The night had been spent training Noct on everything from dining etiquette to his gait and posture to all the stuff he was supposed to have learned in the car: his favorite foods, random facts about the Lucis line, and life in the palace. It was a lot, but he was able to name everything:  he liked caviar but hated stroganoff, he loved his cousin's samovar and his mother's feathered hat, his cousin drank, the Duke was short, had a wart, and a yellow cat -- and, of course, his horse's name was Romeo.

Ignis was impressed to say the least -- and for some reason, especially about the cat.

And now, driving down a straight highway and watching the landscape slowly turn from lush green grass to dry, packed dirt, Noctis felt a little more sure of himself. It didn't feel so impossible to at least make a good effort at pretending to be the prince of Lucis.

"We're only ten minutes away now," Ignis announced to his passengers, all of whom were visibly tired of being in a car. "We'll park the car at the Hammerhead station to get it repaired, then go do our business with Cid."

Ignis made it sound so... easy. Like Cid would give him one look and go, _"that's the prince!"_  and give them his seal of approval to go meet with the king. Now, there were a lot of impossible things that had happened to Noctis in the past few days, but the chances of something like that happening were slim to none. 

"Ignis, what's Cid like?" Noctis finally asked.

Gladio looked over at Ignis, and then back at Noct. "Cid's, well... Blunt. Kinda strict. Not really the friendliest guy around."

"You're only saying that because he won't let you sweet-talk Cindy. He's not all that bad, simply standoffish. It's his daughter, Cindy, who acts more as the face of business -- though more often than not, she's also working on an automobile," Ignis corrected. "She'll be doing some routine work on this one while we make our case."

"He has a daughter? Is she cute?" Prompto piped up, eyebrows raised.

"Prompto, if _I'm_  not allowed to flirt with her, what makes you think  _you_  can?"

Noctis frowned at Prompto; why was he even asking? Something in him rose up and gnashed at the very idea -- something that felt a little like jealousy.

"My boyish good looks! You look like you took on a courel."

"And won!"

"No more arguing," Ignis said loudly, just as he turned the wheel. In the distance, there was something like a gas station that was coming closer and closer. "We're almost there, and I would like to arrive without bruises on Prompto, thank you."

Noctis stuck his head out of the lowered window to get a better look. Sure enough, there was a sign that was just starting to become legible:  _Hammerhead._  This was it, he told himself. This was the beginning of the consequences of the stupidest decision of his life.


	8. everything to win

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'ALL I'M SORRY. i had every intention of updating over spring break, and then i got hit with the WORST case of writer's block. it's a miracle that this chapter even got written ??? because i wanted it to be SO GOOD ??? because a month and a half long hiatus deserves a pretty good chapter ????????
> 
> ya girl's not quitting on this fic though, no sir. not until baby noctis gets his end goal... or will he? hehe

The rocks and dust crunched beneath the wheels of the car as Ignis pulled into the tiny gas station that was the pride and joy of Hammerhead. All around them was low, tan mountains that had arid and cracked soil to match. And, as Noctis pulled his hand up to wipe away the sweat that was beading on his forehead, he realized that summer hadn't started to wind down yet for Hammerhead. But then again, with such an utter lack of anything resembling foliage, it wasn't hard to see why.

As soon as Ignis turned off the ignition, Noctis clambered his way out of the hot, stuffy car, shaking his legs out a few times to get the circulation moving again. 

Or maybe he was trying to hide the way he was trembling.

"I'll go ask after Cindy; likely, she's in the back somewhere working on another vehicle. Gladio, can you see about renting that trailer over there, and then doing some grocery shopping?" Ignis ordered as he slipped out of his jacket.  He looked tempted to roll up the sleeves, but Noctis could tell that he didn't want to risk wrinkling his shirt. It made him smile to think that someone could be so concerned with keeping up appearances that he'd make himself suffer in a tight button-up in ninety degree heat.

 _But_ , the nagging in the back of his voice called, _that's likely to impress Cid. One of the king's oldest friends isn't going to want to speak to someone dressed any less fancifully than Ignis -- much less someone in dirty, disheveled clothes with hair in disarray and skin caked in sweat._

As Noctis fingered a hole in the hem of his own dirty, disheveled shirt, he hoped that Cid was making exceptions today.

"Come on, Iggy, lemme talk to Cindy, you can go get Cid, and then the boys can wait in the store or somethin'!" Gladio pleaded, his own shirt fully open and showing off some massive pectorals and washboard abs.

"Gladiolus Amicita, I am going to strangle you." Ignis said exasperatedly, already walking off in the direction of the auto shop door. "And get them some new clothes!"

 

"Alright, kids, here's home for today. I'm grabbing a shower and then we're going to the store." Gladio announced as they stepped into their newly rented caravan. He was off to find the shower before either Prompto or Noctis could blink. 

The caravan was the epitome of kitschy, with little knick-knacks hanging off or sitting on every surface and the furniture all some shade of orange or green. But none of that mattered when the gods-given air conditioning was already blasting away. The sharp drop in temperature was all too welcome.

Noctis threw himself on the first couch he saw, sinking into it and letting out a deep sigh. He figured that he could put his worries at rest for just five minutes so that he could get a quick nap in...

And then he heard the shutter of a camera.  _Prompto._

"Hey, I thought we agreed on no candids!" Noctis groaned, cracking open an eye.

"Yeah, but I just figured we should document this!  _'Photos of the Missing Prince: The Journey to Insomnia. By Prompto Argentum._ ' Or, you know, something maybe not so wordy." Prompto plopped down on the seat next to Noctis, leaning over to show him the shot.

"I'm not -- I'm not the missing prince just yet, okay? We have to actually get people to believe that first," Noctis corrected him, looking over at the digital frame. Usually, Noctis didn't even really like to look at himself in a mirror, but he couldn't take his eyes away from the picture. Even when he was taking photos on a whim, Prompto had a real knack for good composition. The way the sunlight filtered in, Noct's position, the atmosphere -- Noctis only wondered how good Prompto could be if he actually trained for this stuff. "But, uh. This one's good. You can keep it."

"You really think so? Maybe if I could edit it a little, maybe warm the tone a little, or change the focus... Think Insomnia libraries have photo-editing software?"

"I'm not sure, but you know... Art schools definitely have them. Like, for students." Their relationship was different now; maybe Prompto would actually  _listen_  to him this time.

"What are you -- Oh." Confusion passed over Prompto's face, and then something like hesitance. "We talked about this already. I'm not going -- Well, I  _wasn't_  going to Insomnia for that, and I'm still not. It was..."

As Prompto's voice trailed off, Noctis knew he was in new territory and that he should step lightly. It sounded like Prompto was ready to share another piece of himself, and Noctis wanted to hear. He waited patiently, expectantly, for Prompto to finish.

"You know how I said my parents were Independents?"

Noctis nodded. Prompto was talking about his parents again -- he needed to be super extra careful.

Prompto let out a soft, disbelieving chuckle. "Usually, anyone else is like, ' _Ahh, your parents wanted to kill the king_ , and _your parents killed the prince and the queen...!_ ' But that's not what they wanted, that's not what any Independent  _really_  wanted. What they -- what...  _we_  want is independence from the Crystal, it's the point of our name. It protects us from the outside world, but what does it do to really kill any daemons out there? What is it doing but letting them get stronger and increase their numbers? We want to go out and fight them, but the king... doesn't believe us. Said that the gods have a plan, but how long is that plan gonna take? We can't afford to wait more than a couple years, and it only makes things worse for when the king gets his head out of his ass and goes to fight their army. He's too much under the control of the Crystal." 

Prompto said it all fast, as if he was nervous. It made it hard to take it all in, that... that Prompto supported the people who had killed the heir to the throne. The people who had impoverished Lucis and nearly drove it into the ground, the people who had opened up the opportunity for Noctis to lie to the world about being the prince.

"So what are you saying, Prom? Are you -- are you gonna kill the king?" Noctis' voice dropped to a whisper out of fear that Gladio would come back.

"Wh --  _No!_  I'm not gonna freaking _murder_  anyone, what I'm getting at is -- I'm going to Insomnia. I wanna help the Independent effort, figure out ways to protect the people from daemons outside of Lucis and make the world a better, safer place. What I'm asking  _you_  is that... If this all works out..." Prompto took a breath, looked Noctis straight in the eye.

"You're going to be king. And you're already so much  _better_  than Regis. You're smart, you'd know that the only way to free Lucians from the Crystal is to... is to destroy it."

Noctis' eyes widened at even the thought. Why did people think it was fair to keep asking Noctis to do the  _craziest_  things?

"No. Prompto -- I  _can't._  How would I even do that? I'd get caught, they'd -- they'd probably behead me or stone me or something, Prom, there's absolutely no way --"

"No, Noct --" Prompto put his hands on Noctis', which made him shut right up. "I said it wrong. I only want you to... think about it. Please. If not for me, then for the Lucians."

Prompto looked straight at him, and the  _conviction_  in his face moved Noctis. There was something genuine in Prompto's well wishes, even if it came at the cost of the only thing that had been protecting the Lucians since... well, since there  _were_  Lucians.

Noctis' poor brain was reeling, its attention split between how  _sweaty_  his hands were with the heat and the feeling of Prompto's fingers on them, and between the proposition for him to destroy the godsdamned _Crystal_. Being a teenager was weird; two things with _very_ different magnitudes of importance could still make his heart pound at the same breakneck pace.

"Uh -- Yeah. Okay, sure." And, of course, Prompto's hands on his won the "most pressing problem" award. He shifted his focus downward, studying Prompto's fingers: equally sweaty, likely since the blonde had just proposed something like treason to the guy who might be the future prince, but there were other, more important features to focus on: Prompto's hands were supple, light, pale, and -- and were those freckles even on the backs?

They were both quiet, Prompto having eventually looked down too. Calm hands suddenly became tense, rigid, frozen, as if they were afraid to move.

Nervous. Why would Prompto be nervous?

"Um... Do you have another phobia I don't know about? Because you look kinda..."

Prompto's violet eyes shifted back up to meet Noctis', offense written in them. Nice going, Noctis.

"Look kinda what?" There was an edge to his voice, but something masked beneath. Something like curiosity.

A sort of weird hyper-nervousness passed over him. Dammit, he had the balls to agree to _think about destroying the Crystal_ , why was he so afraid to say what had been on his mind for two days?

"Noctis?" Prompto asked again, his hands starting to slip away as he sat up. Noctis did the only thing that made sense -- he reached for them again, held them in his own. Prompto looked at their hands, then back at Noctis.

"I just meant that you looked... not like you usually do. Maybe it's the lighting, I dunno."

Prompto seemed to melt into a million pieces right then and there. 

The blonde moved closer, closing the distance between them. "The lighting, huh? Could say the same about you."

Oh, gods. Did he really look nervous? He was going more for charming or seductive or -- or something else that never really ever described himself before. He needed to think of something to say, something witty, something flirty: "Yeah," he answered stupidly.

If he had the chance, he would have just gone outside and dug himself six feet under; it would save either of them a lot of trouble.

Prompto chuckled and looked back down again. "Noctis, I'm pretty sure you wanna kiss me."

If Noctis wasn't blushing, he sure was now. The heat traveled from up his neck to pool at his cheeks, and it singed away any semblance of the ability to speak. He stuttered a couple times, flustered and without a  _clue_  how he should respond. Gods, he wanted the chance to kiss Prompto for what felt like forever, but what if Prompto didn't? For all the _what ifs_  that had come into his life recently, this was hands down the scariest one. "Uh -- Uh -- I --"

Then Prompto shifted again, moved closer so that there was nowhere else to look but in each other's eyes. They really  _were_  violet, lavender even; and they were also wide with wonder and perfectly contrasted with the light blonde of his eyelashes, like the gods had spent extra time on making Prompto an absolute masterpiece. "I'll make things easy for you and me: kiss me right now if you want to. If not, we can just pretend this never happened." His voice was quiet, and oh, so teasing.

Noctis' lungs decided to give out then. There was the chance, it was his for the taking -- so why not? Besides, if he was going to figure out how to breathe again, he needed to act fast.

So he moved his head forward, eyes closed, lips puckered, everything he'd seen in movies but never tried himself -- and then he felt Prompto's lips touch his and it was like magic. A warm feeling spread throughout him, brand new and familiar at the same time.

Prompto had soft lips, though for someone who cared so much about his hair and skin, it wasn't surprising. But they were almost a velvety kind of smooth, and the kissing was slow and patient, nothing like what Noctis was expecting. Soon, it became a sort of rhythm: pucker then, relax now, repeat. Soon, it was just open-mouth kisses, lazy and sweet and perfect.

When they pulled away for air, Noctis felt... calm. Calmer than he'd felt in what felt like forever.

"That was... I never..." The bluenette started. He realized he was still holding Prompto's hands.

"Yeah," Prompto breathed right after. His forehead found its way to Noct's shoulder, and Noctis was all too happy to let it rest there. "Me neither."

The moment was brief.

The bathroom door creaked open down the hallway, and Noctis and Prompto were quick to place themselves on opposite sides of the couch with their hands very much to themselves.

* * *

By the time the time that Noctis stepped out of the minimarket, wearing a generic black t-shirt and off-black slacks that didn't fit without a belt, the sun was already starting to set. Prompto stood at a shy distance on the other side of Gladio as they made their way over to the Hammerhead garage.

"Jeez, what is Ignis  _doing_  in there?" Gladio grumbled as he rang the doorbell of the private entrance to the garage, the one saved only for Cindy and Cid. From what Noctis had seen, it didn't seem like anyone else really worked there.

"Maybe he's getting the approval from Cid to marry Cindy. Then you'll never get to shoot your shot," Noctis teased, arms smugly crossed against his chest (though that was more to calm his nerves than anything else).

"Shut up. More likely, Ignis is getting his ass handed to him for bringing some scrawny Duscean to him."

"Hey, I'm not --"

"There you are," a voice called from behind the opening door. It was Ignis, looking as cool, calm, and collected as ever. "I was wondering when I'd hear bickering. It seems to be all the three of you are capable of," he said, though not without the hint of a smile.

"Sorry, Iggs. Look, we did what you wanted, got them new clothes and everything, is Cid ready to see us now?" Gladio asked while stepping into the private dwelling with Noctis and Prompto in pursuit.

"Well," Ignis answered with an exasperated sigh. "It took convincing Cindy to convince Cid to even entertain the idea, but yes, I believe he will hear Noctis out. She's already gone to him, so all we have to do it wait. All it depends on is whether or not Noctis can convince him, too."

Noctis felt the attention shift toward him, and it made him decidedly uncomfortable. He rubbed an arm, though quickly stopped when he realized he might be wrinkling his shirt. There was no point going to see Cid if he was just going to look like an insecure mess.

"Uh... Yeah, I think I can do it. Gotta speak that stuff into existence, you know?"

Gladio chuckled. "Attaboy. We'll be back on our way to Insomnia in no time."

Noctis nodded, his heart beating just a little faster. Oh gods, it was really coming down to the wire now, wasn't it? It wasn't all fun and games and hypothetical statements anymore -- it was the real thing. And the worst thing was that it had been easy to play along when someone had already believed he could be the prince; it was another to have to convince someone else of it.

To take his mind off of how  _unprepared_  he felt, he looked over to Prompto. The blonde was looking off into the vast desert that lay just across the road from Hammerhead, a wistful look in his eyes. Most likely, if Gladio had allowed Prompto to take his camera, Prompto would have since walked away to take some landscapes. 

Noctis must have been staring too long, because Prompto looked back at him like he had felt Noctis' gaze. They both started to blush, and Noctis found that his heart was pounding in the good way. If this all fell to pieces in the next ten minutes, if Cid decided not to give his seal of approval... Well, he wouldn't mind roaming the streets of Insomnia so long as he had Prompto.

"Hey, boys," a new voice called out from off to the side, making Noctis' neck snap with how fast he turned his head to look. In the doorway of the private entrance to the garage stood a beautiful, lean blonde woman in short shorts and a t-shirt greased with oil. A cap sat backwards on her head, just as dirty as the shirt. In fact, there was no part of her that wasn't glazed over with sweat, or bore the grease and dirt signs of a mechanic. She was wiping her hands off with a rag, and when she was done, she turned the hat around. "Daddy said he'll see y'all, but I had to promise him breakfast at the diner. I'm sending you the bill, Ignis," she joked, coming down the steps.

"Splendid," Ignis answered, a smile on his face. When the woman got to the bottom of the steps, she gave Gladio a hug in greeting that lasted just long enough and ended abruptly enough to make Gladio swoon.

"Now, I never met the little prince, but I'm sure he didn't have hair as light as paper -- so," she said smartly with a pat on Prompto's head. She turned to Noctis and gave the sweetest smile he'd ever seen. "I'm Cindy, Cid's girl -- though, I bet Ignis already told you all that. And, well, my daddy won't show it and will deny I ever said it, but I reckon that he's rather excited to meet you!"

Noctis' jaw was still on the floor. Sure, if Gladio was into a girl, then she'd probably be a knockout -- but he wasn't expecting anything like Cindy. "Uh -- Yeah, I'm --  _AHEM --_  I'm excited to meet him, too." No aggressive throat clearing could have hid the fact that Noctis' voice had gone six octaves higher than it normally was.

"Perfect! Well, I've got to pick up some motor oil from the store -- Daddy and I both forgot to order some again. I'll see you boys after y'all's meeting? I'll just be dyin' to know how everything worked out!" She was already walking off; it seemed like she was used to only being able to stop and chat for a handful of seconds.

"Of course, Cindy," Gladio piped up, arms crossed and bulging. Show off. "I'll tell you everything that happened over dinner."

"It's a date, then! With _all_  of you." And with that, she was out of ear shot and striding along to the minimarket.

They all stood silent for a moment as they watched her walk off. Prompto was first to speak up. " _She's_  Cindy?!"

"Well, yeah. What were you expecting?" Gladio huffed, uncrossing his arms and effectively putting his gun show away.

"But she's -- she's so ho --"

"Whatever you may describe her as," Ignis interrupted loudly and clearly, "she is not only married to her work, but not the man we've come here to talk to. Cid's waiting in  _there."_  He made a point of directing them towards the open door Cindy had left for them.

Noctis looked over at the door. Behind it was the means to an end: either the end of a long journey or the beginning of an even longer one. And the only way to know which one it would be was to take a step forward. And if he wanted the latter... he was going to have to take charge.

"Ignis is right. Let's go," Noctis said. He was first to walk towards the steps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let bi boys be bi !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


	9. The Neva Flows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I feel like every year has a new energy, and I feel like this year is really about, like, the year of realizing stuff. And everyone around me, we're all just, like, realizing things." - Kylie Jenner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hoo wee lads i thought i wouldn't be updating for another week bc it's finalz szn (rawr XD) but turns out that i like to procrastinate by having two-hour writing periods :))))
> 
> okay okay WHAT are you doing still reading this, read the dang chapter !!!!!!!!

Ascending the narrow steps into the upper floors of the private living space of the Sophiars, Noctis couldn't help feel like this whole thing was straight out of a video game. He was headed into the lair of the first boss, moderately armed, feeling just confident enough that he got himself to this point and that he might finish the job... but also worried about how this boss is going to fight, if he'll wipe the floor with Noctis' ass.

Yeah, this stuff was way less daunting when it was trapped behind the confines of a phone screen.

The calm before the storm didn't last long. His hand slipping off the banister as he reached the top of the stairs, Noct got first look into the life of one of the king's best friends. He didn't really know what he was expecting; pristine marble floors and glass walls and a big, fat, golden chandelier hanging from the ceiling, maybe. But a dilapidated and living room with old wood flooring and aged drywall and crowded with furniture was... definitely way below expectations.

As old as it looked, the place also felt rather warm and lived-in. There were pictures everywhere, though there were loose car parts hanging around here and there. Books were everywhere, most in shelves but a substantive amount sitting open and covers-up on nearly every armchair. The moldy smell --  _vintage,_  Noctis quickly chastised himself -- was pungent yet unpleasant. It smelled like memories.

Noctis stepped into the room and let himself look around at the pictures, mostly of Cindy growing up through the years. She was every bit as hands-on as she was now; in every photograph, Cindy was sporting dirty or bruised knees, a random cut or band-aid here and there, and perpetually unruly hair.

He turned to look at more of the pictures that littered the room, but the last few rays of sunlight that were sifting in through the ratty window blinds had glinted off of the glass of a picture frame and made Noctis reflexively cover his eyes. Without thinking, he followed the light to the picture, reached to turn it around -- and then froze. His muscles seized up just like they had done in Galdin Quay, when something possessed him.

Noctis' eyes focused on the photo, narrowing slightly at the men in it. One was a man in a bright yellow jacket with a million patches on it, arm around the other and a big smile on his face. The other man looked more formidable, albeit relaxed and happy. He wore an all black suit and his dark hair was slicked back; and, to complete the look of  _total stick in the mud_ , he had his arm crossed and a smug smile on his face. But oddly enough, he was almost  _familiar._  Noctis rested his hand on the picture of the man just as a single word seared through his mind like a flame:

_Remember._

And it was all over as soon as it had come. Hearing footsteps behind him, Noctis rounded and stood up straight. In came an older man in a dark red jacket, jeans, and old work boots with a cap that hardly covered any wayward strands that still managed to pop out of the sides. That jacket had an uncountable number of patches, just like the man in the photograph. He was  _scary_  to say the least, with blue eyes that pierced like daggers.

So this was Cid.

"Cindy told me y'all wanted to talk, but I didn't think so soon. You barely gave me enough time to scratch my own ass. boy."

"Yes, sir," Noctis said meekly. He shifted his gaze at his friends, the last of whom had just made their way up the last few sets of steps.

"Ignis, Gladiolus. Fancy seeing you here, so far from the capital. Hope everything's okay up there?"

"Yes, sir," Ignis echoed. "We're doing much better than we were even just last year. It's taken a lot of work, but his Highness is confident that he can bring the kingdom back to its height since before --"

"Before Queen Aulea and Prince Noctis died," Cid said shortly. "Before those Independents killed them and turned the whole kingdom to shit. I can tell you, in the years that they had control, I maybe saw five customers a week. Now, I see twenty. People need gas again, all 'a sudden." And then he laughed, as if he were privy to an inside joke. The rest of the group chuckled with him, if only to ease the growing tension.

Cid stopped laughing abruptly, face set hard again as if he had never smiled before in his life. He ambled his way into an armchair and plopped himself unceremoniously into the seat. His eyes shifted from Noctis to the book on the arm, and he chuckled at its title.

"Was readin' about some old myths last time I sat here. Guess I got bored one day, because I don't really see the point in them. Not anymore." He picked the book up, closed it without tabbing the page, and then let it fall to the floor with a sharp smack that made Noctis jump.

"And a little prince come back to life is one hell of a myth."

His eyes snapped right to Noctis', and if Ignis had first looked at Noctis like he was evaluating his soul, then Cid was passing judgement on it.

"Y-Yes, sir."

"Stop with the 'yes, sirs.' I didn't become a mechanic instead of Reggie's advisor because I wanted to be called 'sir.' What I want you to say, boy, is what makes you think you have the right to monopolize on the cold-blooded murder of a five-year-old." His voice got more biting with every syllable, until Noctis was sure he was going to get up and actually attack him.

"Um -- I-I --"

"I -- I --" Cid mocked, his fingers rapping on the chair. " _Speak up!_  If you're supposed to be Reggie's  _boy_ , you'll have the answers! You'll tell me what all the other wanna-be princes told me a decade and a half ago: you were kidnapped or you ran away and lived ten minutes outside the castle, or you got abducted by aliens and were put back very coincidentally in Lucis. And hell, with the prince's ex-Shield and advisor, you might even able to tell me what color prince Noctis' shits were!" Without much capacity to get more vile, Cid's voice had grown into a low shout that had Noctis feeling cold deep in his bones.

Noctis had to bite his lip to keep himself from freaking out. Gods, Cid was right, this was going to go nowhere. He didn't have any right to be standing in front of Cid and stirring a pot that had long since gone cold. This was a crack shot at a dream that was never going to _be_  anything more than a dream. He wanted to cry, wanted to apologize and leave and go back to Duscae and beg for his job back.

But then he remembered the... the  _emotion_  that had come over him in the Galdin forest and with the photograph, and the blue dream, and... and some part of this... well, something had to be real. There  _had_  be something important about Lucis that was ingrained into him somehow. Because those things only happened when he had been close to something related to Lucian royalty, it couldn't entirely be coincidence, there had to be something tying him and  _them_  together.

"In... In the photograph. Is that you and... the king? King Regis?" It was the first time he'd really ever said the king's name; there was never really a need for him to do it before, aside from the week where everyone from Cleigne to Insomnia had celebrated the king's return to the throne.

Cid paused for a moment, and Noctis could feel the eyes on the back of his neck as he turned back to the photo. It was old, dated a few years before Noctis was born. He probably wasn't even a thought then, not even to whoever his mother was. And yet, he couldn't help but see  _himself_  in the picture; the same hair, the same nose... and the eyes. Stormy and deep blue, visible even from the distance the photo was taken from, _so much_  like his own... Gods, he knew that it was probably pure happenstance that they looked so similar, but if it weren't for the weak tendrils of warmth seeping throughout his body, starting from his chest to his shoulders, thighs, fingertips...

Noctis' eyes widened as a scene flashed across his mind, just for half a second: a wall with a table and a framed painting above it. The table moved, and then everything went black again in his head.

"Noct, are you quite alright?" Ignis asked, stepping forward as Noctis winced, whimpered, and grabbed his forehead. All at once, he was hit with a pounding headache that had him reeling. It felt like his brain was  _melting,_  like all his neurotransmitters were sending along bits of fire. Soon, he was gasping and if Ignis hadn't rushed forward to catch him, he would have hit the floor.

"I -- I --" Noctis stuttered just before retching. The pain was immense, it was  _too much,_  he swore these would be his last few moments on the gods' green earth --

And then, as if waiting until the very last minute, the sharp pounding turned into throbbing and then into a weak pulsating. It was gone, and Noctis felt as if he had ten years taken off his life what was probably the span of thirty seconds.

Noctis didn't realize the iron grip he'd had on Ignis' arm, and promptly released his hold to try and stand on his own despite Ignis' protesting. His legs were a little wobbly, but they'd support his weight.

"I-I'm okay," he answered finally, though his voice was weak. "That picture, Mr. Sophiar -- Was there -- was there something with a painting? O-Or a moving table, or... something," he panted. The pain might have gone away, but his head was still swimming. Everything was foggy, and he was scrabbling to see  _anything else_  of that scene in his mind's eye, the first memory he'd ever had of something from his past.

Cid stared at him a while longer, eyes wider from the surprise of Noctis' outburst. "That photo is of Regis and me when I took him out fishing for the first time. I had been teasing him a while about ruling people whose occupations he had no idea of, especially about the fishermen, Insomnia being a coastal city and everything. So he said, 'Then take me out there, Cid.' I think he almost caught something that day," the old man answered, chuckling to himself as he told the story. "That man is hopeless when it comes to doing things us normal folk do, but... he's damn good at what he does right now. What he does, he does for his people, even if he's miserable for it.

"Now, Cindy told me what you all'r up to, and I don't like it. That man lost his _family_ in  _his own house,_ even with all his Crownsguard around and godsgiven magic and the whole nine yards, and then he lost his crown. He's been through some tough times, but he's accepted their deaths and y'all'r trying to rip open an old wound that might never heal. But... I won't say that there's not nothing that makes sense in your schemin'. We need a prince, and Regis is old. And if you two knuckleheads are endorsing this...  _pauper,_ " he spat the word out like it was something rotten. "Well, I guess it's worth a try, come hell or high water. Kid looks like prince Noctis enough, and I'm sure you wouldn't have let him come here if he didn't know everything there was to know about the tyke, Ignis. Fine, I'll give him a call -- but when this all falls through, don't say I didn't try to tell you that it was never gonna work."

Noctis' heart jumped up into his throat in spite of how much it had been working the past few minutes -- there was just no other way to contain his excitement and nervousness at the same time. He was going to Insomnia for real.

* * *

Later that night, amid celebration over drinks and card games, Ignis found a moment alone.

He'd stepped out with the promise of bringing back more chips, seeing as the two growing boys and the hunk of a man that Ignis was travelling with had finished all their snacks. But as he made the short walk from the caravan to the shop, a growing, unsettling feeling had taken over him. Of course he was pleased that Noctis had Cid's seal of approval -- after all, that was almost a sure-fire way of  _actually_  getting Noctis an audience with the king -- but something just... wasn't sitting right.

It wasn't hard to think why; Noctis' sudden and random affliction had him worried.

The door to the supermarket jingled as Ignis stepped inside, and he was quickly greeted by the cashier.

Ignis walked slowly to the snack aisle, playing the scene again over and over in his head. Noctis had looked at an impossibly old photo of Cid and Regis, and then got the worst headache he'd ever seen. Ignis was afraid he'd be sick. But he wasn't, he was magically just fine some seconds after. Then he'd said something peculiar. He'd asked about a framed painting and a... moving table?

 _What an odd thing to ask about a photo that suggested nothing of the sort. They were_ outside, _after all._

Ignis took his mind off the situation for a brief second to make sure he got flavors they would all like. His personal favorite was salt and vinegar (though he would never admit he ate chips often enough to have a favorite), but original was always a safe choice. Ignis settled for a bag of sour cream & onion and original.

It was a good idea to grab soda, too. It was likely that in the time he was gone, the boys had finished that, too. 

The walk from the chips to the back of the store for beverages gave him more time to muse over Noctis' comment. How  _did_  one extrapolate such an idea? Where could Noctis have seen a painting above a table before?

Ignis got that feeling -- he was missing something that was making sense subconsciously. A hunch. Noctis did have a reason to think of the scene he'd described, but why? _Why?_

He hastily reached for a bottle of soda, not bothering to read the label. Ignis was a dog with a bone now, sifting through his memory to find the connection.

 _No, there was nothing he'd said to Noctis in the car about something of the sort. No, there was nothing in the Quay. No, Prompto hadn't mentioned anything while Noctis was unconscious._ Was there any point in going farther back?

Ignis reached the cashier and placed the items on the counter. He didn't have the attention span to spare a polite smile at the employee.

He'd go farther back, if only to sate his curiosity -- all the way to his brief encounters with the little prince. There were no stories of young Noctis pushing around tables and looking at paintings. And anyway, the paintings in the castle were few; they were mostly of past kings and queens who had lived before the invention of the camera, and of the castle before helicopters.

And there was one painting of the castle that was more important than the rest.

It hung above a small, round table that could be moved in case of emergency. And there had only ever been one emergency that the prince had used it.

Ignis' blood seemed to stop circulating for half a breath.

"Okay, sir, your total is going to be fifty -- Sir? Sir, are you okay?" The cashier asked, leaning forward.

"He's...  _alive?_ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ignis is realizing things. he's like.... realizing that he's realizing things, yk. this is just the year of realizing that he's realizing that he's realizing things. he's thinking and realizing things. realizing.
> 
> we're almost done here !!!!!!! kinda got tired of world development and am just. going for the gold here. i cannot tell you how much i keep playing this regis meeting noctis scene again in my head. (spoiler alert: regis is gonna kick t(his) kid's ass)


	10. Crysalis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompto is told one thing, but hears another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey y'all !!! guess who's back from the dead lmao
> 
> thank you so much for all your kind words. it's really motivated me to keep going even though my creativity is at an all-time low, especially with this chapter. admittedly, i feel like it's not very good, but sometimes you just need to keep writing and put it out there and damn the consequences. 
> 
> please enjoy !!!!!!!!!

It all seemed to click into place. How they found him, the uncanny ability to remember all those stories and facts about things that a peasant would never be able to imagine, and Ignis' immediate gut feeling.

Ignis' strides got wider as he approached the caravan, heart ready to burst from its cage with excitement and elation. He had no clue what he'd do once he'd gone in; maybe he'd it'd be the first thing he'd shout at them, maybe he'd bow, maybe he'd tell Noctis in private.

And Ignis' not knowing what to do, a rare occurrence, made him feel more  _alive_  than he had felt in over a decade. Of course he'd blamed himself for Noctis' untimely death; after all, he was supposed to be Noctis' advisor, his right hand man, the one who was supposed to be in control when everything was going wrong. The one who should have known that there had been an ambush outside and not to send the little prince out there. Any teenager would have that sort of basic intuition, no less a Scientia. He had failed his king, his country, and sullied his family name.

But the gods had given him another chance; a chance to protect the prince with tooth and nail.

Ignis' would bring the prince back to Insomnia even if it killed him. That was the only fair trade-off.

He placed a hand on the slender metal handle of the door, barely even squeezing. Despite how over the moon he was, it was most important to  _think_ ; that was his best asset, the only reason he was still allowed to step foot into the Citadel. As of that moment, he was the only person in the entire world who knew that the line of Lucis was not drawing to a close (discounting one very confused store clerk who had absolutely no context). And, if his sources were correct, there was still a slew of Independents who lay in the shadows, waiting for Regis' inevitable death.

If word got out that the true wielder of the Crystal's power was, in fact, still quite a ways away from said Crystal and had no formal training... the prince would be in very real danger.

 _No,_ Ignis thought,  _the prince_ is _in very real danger. No use in any past tense, not when the Crystal is calling to him as much as it has._

They needed to leave as soon as possible and get him where it was safest.

Ignis pushed on the handle and strode in with a newfound and ferocious confidence, with a _purpose_.

"Ignis, what's up?" Gladio asked instantly. The two were nearly telepathic with how they could sense the energy coming from one another.

This was Ignis' chance; he could say something now, to this small group who he'd have his eye on the entire time and could trust. They'd know the journey they were in for, even if Insomnia was a day's car ride away.

"Nothing's the matter," he answered, surprising even himself. "I just hadn't looked at the time. Dinner should be done in an hour."

His partner's eyebrows furrowed, and Ignis' knew that his mind was being read. He kept their eyes locked just a minute longer in the hopes that Gladio would get the message:  _we need to talk._

"Do you need any help?" Prompto asked, sitting up from his seemingly uncomfortable position on the couch: it seemed that he and Noctis needed to lay down at the same time, and they had opted to share the space by throwing their legs over its back. Ignis felt better about saying nothing; he couldn't put his finger on it, but he didn't... completely trust Noctis' new best friend.

"No. Noctis, sit up, please, that will ruin your posture." Ignis felt electrified by being able to give the  _real_  Noctis advice on princely mannerisms.

But the teenager only groaned and shifted an inch. "Look, posture's all perfect now. Prom, it's your turn."

The blonde snapped his head right back to his phone, rather than to do as he normally did and beg Ignis to let him help. The sounds of King's Knight blared from the small device, and all Ignis could do was roll his eyes. It was a mistake to give them phone chargers.

* * *

A quick dinner of rice, chicken, and vegetables was prepared, though Ignis of course always made it taste like a five-star meal.

Ignis had expected dinner to feel... differently. For there to be some halo of shining light around the prince's head, for him to have some visible aura of regality, or even for the ghosts of his ancestors to come barreling through the door. But it was a normal dinner for the four of them. Noctis gave Prompto his vegetables, Gladio made a dubious joke, Ignis reprimanded them all. It felt _natural_ to be sitting at the table with the future king.

But as soon as Ignis had asked for help to clear the table and do the dishes, the boys suddenly had very pressing appointments in their room. He and Gladio were left alone to handle the plates, pots, pans, and utensils.

The subdued yellow glow of the ceiling light, washing over their faces and creating stark shadows, and the sound of running water gave Ignis an opportunity to collect himself. After all, if he was going to convince Gladio, he was going to need to have his story in order.

"Gladiolus," Ignis finally mumbled. 

"Ignis," Gladio echoed.

Ignis said nothing for another long while, focused mainly on scrubbing the plates free of any grease. This entire trip, he had been uncharacteristically acting on gut feelings. While he very much trusted his intuition... statistically, one of those premonitions had to be incorrect. He had to be  _wrong_  at least once, and what if this was it?

Well, he'd never know if he didn't try.

"Do you remember when Noctis asked Cid about the photo of His Highness? Whether there were any moving tables or framed paintings involved?"

Gladio gave him a sideways glance, complete with a curious raised eyebrow. "Yeah. I thought it was a pretty weird thing to ask about, but I figured he was just nervous. Didn't know what to say, so he said something dumb. And, you know, he did have that whole...  _headache_ thing."

"He's seen that moving table before. That was a memory."

Now Gladio's forehead sported a thick unibrow. "A memory of what?"

"From when he lived in the Citadel." Ignis hated that he kept dancing around, but he couldn't stop himself. He needed to a feel for Gladio's reaction, though he knew it was likely going to be adamant disbelief.

Gladio nearly dropped the pan he was drying off, surprise and confusion written in each line of his face, and then sullenness. "Ig, we've been over this.  _That_  Noctis is not  _our_  Noctis. He's really good at pretending, and I want to believe it, too, but you and I know better --"

"A maid picked Noctis up from his room that night. She took him all the way to the other end of the castle, to a specific painting that had a table underneath it. If you moved that table, there was an escape hatch.  _I_  was waiting for him there. No one else knew about that except those of us who lived there, and fewer still who have ever had to use it."

The other said nothing, but the force with which he rubbed at the already dry pan was increased tenfold. "So call it a weird coincidence. There's no other proof that he's the prince."

"We found him in a _Royal Tomb_! You heard what Prompto said, they were running from the Iron Giant and Noctis _led them there._  And think of all the other reasons that we're taking him to Insomnia in the first place! The Crystal is  _calling him_ , and it's charged you and I with _bringing him home_." Ignis whisper-shouted, growing increasingly conscious of the thin walls.

Gladio shook his head. "If the Crystal is calling him, then where's the Crystallum? Regis won't believe that Noctis came up with that story all by himself, not if you're with him -- but if he has that necklace, then there's no denying that he's the prince."

Ignis stared at him, eyes hard with the effort it took to think of a way to ask Noctis if he had the Crystallum without being too obvious. Gladio was right; nothing would verify his identity like that age old necklace. Did he even wear jewelry?

Then his eyes went wide as he remembered all the instances where he saw metal glinting off of Noctis' prominent collarbone. "He -- There's a chain -- around his neck -- what if --"

Gladio matched his expression. "You're kidding. Ignis, you've got to be joking, if -- if he has it -- then we've got to leave right now."

* * *

Only one other person in the world knew for sure that Noctis owned a necklace with a pretty blue gem in it: and that person was Prompto.

The worst part was he'd only seen it that night.

With the amount of food they'd eaten, Noctis was sure that Gladio and Ignis would be occupied with washing all the dinnerware. So Prompto, still on Cloud Nine after their first kiss, felt that it was only right to get in the few moments of cuddling that Gladio had stolen from them. They turned the lights off and got into bed, all shy smiles and lovesick giggles.

Prompto had curled up beside Noctis and facing him, so that they got easy access to each others' lips. And, for once, Prompto's nerves were calm. The few times he'd... been with other people, this was always the scariest part of all: looking at them, being near them, having to find something to say. It wasn't that he hadn't been  _ready_  to share his body with someone -- gods knew how touch-starved he was -- but he wasn't ready to share his _heart_. Prompto was afraid that if he didn't stay interesting every second he was with someone else, then they'd get bored.

But that wasn't the case with Noctis; it never had been. His natural instinct when forced to meet someone new was to ooze confidence, and then later dissect every little thing he did or said. And, when faced with either befriending Noctis or being ratted out to the police, there was only one clear option. And the first night, before he went to bed, he thought about all the things he could have said to make himself seem cooler or if he'd done something stupid -- and then he just... didn't. He had, for the first time in his life, been able to just shut himself up and go to sleep.

That's when he knew Noctis was different.

Different enough to gain so much of Prompto's trust in such a short amount of time. Maybe he was investing too much emotion in him, maybe this was going to be the biggest mistake of his life. But laid in bed, with moonlight streaming in to illuminate each and every one of Noct's handsome features? It was worth it.

"Noctis... Can I ask you something?" Prompto whispered, looking down at the collar of Noct's shirt.

The noiret took a deep, contented breath before answering. "Anything."

"Do you believe in fate?"

Eyes as dark as the night sky flitted up to meet Prompto's. They stared at each other, drinking each other in, and then Noct said thoughtfully, "I guess... I always have. Secretly. I think meeting you was fate."

Prompto turned into a tomato before Noctis even finished the sentence. To hide his face, he buried it in Noctis' chest, to which Noctis laughed and tried to shake him free.

"I'm serious! Look, I had no clue where I was going a couple days ago. There was a fork in the road, and I didn't know if I was going to go right to Deunnel or if I was gonna go left to... well, I dunno where. Wherever the road took me. But I couldn't decide, so I opened, uh... This necklace, right here --"

Noctis released an arm from Prompto to reach into his own shirt, pulling out a pendant on a short chain. Noctis unlocked it to reveal a mesmerizingly blue jewel, one that must have been worth at least five thousand gil. He rubbed his thumb over the smooth natural cut, then met Prompto's wide eyes.

"It's the only thing I have from my parents. Well, I've always assumed it was my parents. I've just had it since before the orphanage, technically. But I asked it for a sign, and then you came out of nowhere."

"Noctis..." Prompto gasped, afraid to even touch the gem. Gods, if he owned something like that, he would have sold it in a heartbeat. "This is -- It's beautiful."

"Yeah. But, uh... I don't want Ignis or Gladio to know about it. They might make me throw it away or hide it or something, and -- and I've had it around my neck long as I can remember. The king himself could tell me to take it off, and I'd tell him no."

That made the blonde laugh. "Alright, courel, no one's taking your necklace. But will you let me look at it? I've just never touched something so --" So  _expensive._

Noctis chuckled and, without little hesitance, let Prompto check out the small stone.

Prompto shifted it so that it caught the light at different angles, the hue shifting from dark to light to somewhere in between. He was so focused on the color that he nearly ignored the light catching two tiny, engraved letters: _L.C._

"Noct... There's something here. Initials. Do you think that it's...?"

"My parents'? Yeah, I think so. There has to be a way to crack it. How many people do you think have those initials?"

"Can't be too many. Insomnia's not  _that_  big a place. Maybe a couple hundred? Of course, you can get other people to look into it for you... once you're a  _prince._ " Prompto teased, letting the locket slip out of his hands. Then his face fell with a sudden realization.

He was supposed to be meeting with the Chancellor once he'd gotten to Hammerhead.

"Oh crap -- I-I  gotta go --" Prompto said hurriedly. He jumped out of bed and straight to a mirror, if only to make himself seem more forgivable for being almost half an hour late.

Noctis sat up, hurt written all over his face. " _What?_  Prom, is this for your running again? Gods, can't you leave that until tomorrow? One missed run won't kill you!"

Shit. Prompto needed to come up with something fast; something that wasn't going to make Noctis mad at him. "Uh.... I-If I skip a day, the pounds just come right back, trust me on that one."

"It doesn't matter whether you lose or gain a few pounds, you're fine just the way you are!"

'Sorry, Noct," Prompto said definitely. That had hit a little too close to home. "Look, I won't be gone long; and then you can get all the cuddles you want." He pruned his hair quickly in the mirror, and, and in the Hammerhead heat, decided to forego the jacket. It might make him look suspicious.

Noctis made an angry sound and covered his head with a pillow. Prompto was going to have to work extra hard for forgiveness.

The blonde decided that he'd think of something on the way back; right now, he needed to figure out how he was going to get out of the caravan without alerting Ignis and Gladio.

He pushed the door open with only the smallest of creaks -- the bright light had stunned his vision -- and then closed it even more quietly. Thankfully, there were still hushed voices coming from the kitchen. 

Creeping silently down the tiny hall before reaching the main living space, Prompto strained his hearing just to make sure that they weren't hearing him. And oh, how he wished he hadn't.

"-- Crystal is  _calling him_ , and it's charged you and I with _bringing him home_." Ignis had whispered with an urgency Prompto had never heard before.

A husky voice, slathered with anger, answered, "If the Crystal is calling him, then where's the Crystallum? Regis won't believe that Noctis came up with that story all by himself, not if you're with him -- but if he has that necklace, then there's no denying that he's the prince."

 _That necklace._  The words rang through Prompto like a million alarm bells. They couldn't mean the one that Noctis had just shown Prompto; that was entirely different, it  _had_  to be.

And then Ignis spoke again. "He -- There's a chain -- around his neck -- what if --"

"You're kidding. Ignis, you've got to be joking, if -- if he has it -- then we've got to leave right now." Gladio gasped, his voice rising with excitement.

Unless Prompto was blind, there had only ever been one chain that hung around Noctis' neck, the one from his past life. And there was no denying there was something...  _magical_  about it. There was no gem Prompto had ever seen, in a photo or physically, that glowed quite like the one Noctis had, and he knew what Ignis and Gladio were saying to be true -- that was the Crystallum. The fabelled Daughter Crystal that all Lucian prince wore to connect them to the Mother Crystal. And Prompto was the only person who knew for sure what that meant for Noctis.

Prompto needed to get out of there. 

With a quick, desperate, spin around for any sort of escape room, Prompto's was able to lock in on a window at the other end of the hall. If he was quiet enough, he wouldn't be able to alert Noctis, either; there weren't too many excuses for sneaking out of a window in order to go for a night run.

But his hands shook as he pulled the lock and hoisted the windowpane up. His breathing was getting hard. He was  _nervous._

If he told _anyone_ about what he heard, it would cost Noctis his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> noctis is a crystal gem pass it on


	11. Crossing A Bridge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Halfway between where he's been, and where he's going.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello !!! man I didn't think writing this fic would take over half a year lmao
> 
> we're getting there !! there's a lot in store !!!!! I promise !!!!

Prompto could feel the beads of sweat forming on his forehead in the stale air of Hammerhead. Tonight, he was a cocktail of emotions: worry about being late for his appointment with Ardyn, anger at Ignis and Gladio for talking behind Noctis' back, and, of course, a bone-chilling, finger-trembling terror about how he was going to keep the secret that he was in love with the missing prince of godsdamned Lucis. And it certainly didn't help that being out so late and messing with his sleep schedule, if nothing else, was pulling the hair trigger on his anxiety.

To make matters worse, he was going to have to walk far if he was going to find the random conspicuous spot that Ardyn always hid himself in. But then again, the Chancellor had an uncanny way of finding _him_.

So Prompto, after putting a couple yards between him and the caravan, headed off in the direction of the closest mountain range he could see. 

Going out for these meetings was never exactly  _fun._  Sure, it made him feel good to talk to a high-ranking official of the Independents, and even better to know that he was the main field spy, the one who directly supplied Ardyn with the information needed to strengthen the party, but... Something about the sneaking around felt intrinsically wrong -- after all, there was a  _reason_  why no one was allowed to publicly declare themselves an Independent, even if they were on the more moderate side like him.

 _And there's the other thing,_  his anxiety purred sweetly.  _You actually told the king's only begotten son that you're an Independent. The organization that murdered his mother, mortally wounded his father, and stripped him of a family and wealth and happiness._

_If Ignis, Gladiolus, or even Regis doesn't kill you when they find out, Noctis will. It's his right._

Prompto bit his lip hard with the fear. He wanted so badly to believe that wasn't true -- after all, he and Noctis were  _best friends_  now -- but there was no point in kidding himself. It was only a matter of time before Noctis would show his exes-adviser and Shield the Crysalis, and it was all downhill from there.

If he ran, the entire Crownsguard would be out for his blood. If he stayed, it would take Ignis and Gladio less than thirty seconds to slit his throat.

Prompto was a dead man walking.

"Dear Prompto, I do believe you should look into procuring a pair of eyeglasses. It seems that you have a hard time seeing in the dark." The voice sounded like his anxiety personified, just as sickly sweet and borderline mocking.

It had Prompto jumping a hundred feet in the air, and his brain already sending messages to  _run away._

Instead, he stayed transfixed, the Chancellor's tall and intimidating frame looming over him. A smile played on his lips, as if he delighted in the reaction he got from Prompto's cowering.

"You appeared to be very worked up about something. Is there news?" Ardyn purred, lacing his fingers together behind his back. He had one eyebrow crooked up in amusement, only making Prompto feel smaller and smaller.

"Chancellor -- I, um, noth-nothing, I just -- don't like being out, uh, so late. Scared of my own shadow," Prompto said, giving a breathy and short laugh.

"Oh, come now, surely it can't be all that bad. Of course, it can't be helped that the strongest and most bloodthirsty daemons rise from the pits of hell on nights as dark as these, but  _you_  should be safe."

Right. Prompto had almost forgotten about that.

"Y-Yeah. Um -- So, the whole mission thing," he answered quickly, pushing down the growing urge to cry and focusing his energy instead on getting himself back to the caravan. "It's going really awesome so far -- I-I'm working on a strategy to get myself, uh, closer to Noct...-is! Noctis. Yeah, another week and he'll totally be ready to do what has to be done."  _Which is to kill me and every other Independent in Eos._

Prompto's voice usually quivered when he spoke to Ardyn out of deference and submission... but never like this. It felt like he could barely string two words together with how fast his heart hammered away in his ribcage. While trying to hide what he  _really_  knew, if only to protect Noctis from Ardyn, he was pulling out all the anxiety-inhibiting stops: focusing on regulating his breathing by inhaling for seven seconds and then exhaling for six; tapping each of his fingers with his thumb; and, when neither of those worked, the age-old trick of counting to ten as many times as necessary.

But it also felt like the Chancellor's golden eyes were boring right through his brain, past all the lies, and looking right at his soul. They raked over his fearful frame once, twice, and then the mood shifted.

"Prompto," Ardyn said, his voice quieter than the blonde had ever heard it before. The tone was as sharp and deadly as the thinnest razor blade, raking lightly across his skin yet still drawing blood. "are you lying to me?"

Well, he wasn't lying, was he? Just keeping very,  _very_  crucial information to himself. Technically, there was no lie. "T-To _you_? Sir, you know I-I'd never --"

"Because I have known a great deal of liars in my lifetime. And the _tiniest_  secret, well. In order to maintain one, we must make tens, hundreds, thousands of others -- and that simply won't do. So after I've employed certain, ah, _methods_  to extracting the truth, I go to  _painful_ measures to make sure that person will never think to cross me again." By the end, he had stepped close to Prompto and placed a hand on his cheek that Prompto didn't dare step away from. Ardyn turned Prompto's face up to him, forcing their eyes to lock.

Prompto could have crumbled into dust. He didn't want to think about how painful those measures were.

He didn't understand what was keeping him from telling Ardyn the truth. After all, the Chancellor was his safest bet to survival: he was the only one that  _wouldn't_  murder Prompto for what he knew. But if he got the urge to tell the truth, a voice, lovely and kind and perfect would call:

_I think meeting you was fate._

As much as he'd tried to push it down and shut it up, it kept coming in trickles from the back of his mind, straight to his heart. It shouldn't have mattered. This  _thing_  he had with Noctis, it was never supposed to have gotten this far. They were supposed to have just stayed travel buddies: two people with the same destination who would inevitably go their separate ways once they reached it.

But Noctis wasn't just any stranger. He had some sort of  _pull_  to him that was addicting, intoxicating, unavoidable. It was in how his laugh came in charming bursts when Prompto made a dumb joke, how he would look out across the rolling green fields as they trekked across Duscae, it was in the way he lit up when talking about  _fishing,_  of all things. Noctis had a sort of charisma about him that Prompto couldn't get enough of -- and he knew in those moments that, in the end, they were more different than they were similar. Noctis had an easy, calm way about him, whereas Prompto was all nerves and false pretense.

From what he remembered of the terrifying hustle and bustle of Insomnia, Noctis would make it. Prompto would not, not anymore.

The only reason he'd even set out from Cleigne was to fulfill his parents' wishes -- to do what they couldn't, to be  _useful_  to the Independents. He'd hoped that in doing so, it would make them want to spend time with him, maybe even treat him like their son rather than some teenager living in their home. When he made the plans with the Chancellor, their elation was the closest he'd ever gotten to being loved by someone.

And here was Noctis giving that love out freely, without any caveats or clauses or threats. In fact, it had been Prompto asking  _him_  to do something that might cost them both their lives, and Noctis having agreed to do it in exchange for a kiss.

If their meeting was fate, that Prompto was  _meant_  to have met Noctis, to belong to him as a friend, as a lover; and maybe, just maybe, what they had was more than a quick fling that would be chewed up and spit out by the Crown City. Maybe Prompto loved him, even if it was more than Noctis loved him back.

He wouldn't betray that for the world. If Ardyn knew who Noctis really was, Ardyn would kill him without a second thought.

"I don't know anything else, sir." Prompto forced his voice to stabilize, to fill itself with conviction.

The Chancellor's gaze turned steely, two gems of amber turn into hard rock, and the smile fell. "I don't believe you," he whispered, lowering his face until his beard hairs tingled against Prompto's skin, his frame blocking the moonlight. Any resolve that Prompto had was quickly dwindling. Their lips were dangerously close, Prompto's heart worked doubletime, his stomach was ready to give up and empty itself out --

And then it was all over. Ardyn stepped back, his coat swishing with the motion. Prompto felt himself sway forward after him, as if Ardyn was sapping him of his energy.

"But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt." He circled Prompto slowly, watching him with intent, ready to pounce. " _Noct,_  was it? It's good to know you two have become so familiar. It's a shame that he now has two names to answer to, and yet no surname. I wonder what they shall put on his tombstone _._ "

Prompto could barely comprehend what was being said to him; he felt so  _tired_  all of a sudden, his body exhausted from the extremely excessive work it had been doing in such a short period of time. When the words did penetrate his foggy brain, it was all he could do to make a small sound of protest. There wouldn't be a grave for Noctis, not if he could help it.

Without Prompto being able to say anything else in response, Ardyn gave a small chuckle and turned away. "Mr. Sophiar will tell your little band that Regis has welcomed him to the Citadel. You will travel there. Noctis will destroy the Crystal that night, or you can watch me slit his throat. Do I make myself clear?"

"Um --" Prompto said stupidly, eyelids as heavy as cinder blocks.

"I'm glad we're in agreement." That was the last thing Ardyn said; and then he walked off, his body engulfed by shadows and then no longer there.

Prompto stood for just a moment, slowly processing that it was now the time to return to the caravan. His mind was more occupied with how royally  _fucked_  he was.

 

* * *

 

It wasn't the feeling of Prompto's body sinking into the mattress that had woken Noctis up; it was the feeling of harsh sunlight filtering through the blinds, dust motes swirling and basking in its warmth, hitting Noctis' eyelids. When he shifted slightly, the weight of his phone in his hand let him know that he hadn't fallen asleep of his own accord; it was waiting for Prompto that had done him in.

So, in the end, _exercise,_  of all things, had been enough for Prompto to abandon Noctis all night.

 _Maybe I did something wrong,_  Noctis thought sleepily, turning his back to the sunlight.  _Maybe showing him the necklace was too much emotional baggage. Maybe this whole thing was just moving too fast._

Noctis felt his eyelids peel open to take in the bright light and peaceful silence. There had never been any coherent thought that had ever roused him from sleep, no matter how painful it was; his brain had always opted for the numb depths of sleep over tossing and turning.

And yet, he found himself staring up at the ceiling and his heart aching.

Of course, it wasn't anything to really be upset over. So what if Prompto decided to go out for a run on the only foreseeable night they would get to spend together alone, and didn't come back? He was entitled to his own personal space, no matter how much it made Noctis' face hot with the need to express how much it hurt.

 _There's just a lot going on right now,_  Noctis offered to himself.  _I'm tired and there's a lot riding on the next few days. I'm overreacting._

At least, he hoped he was.

The only thing he _was_ sure of was that it was way too early to be thinking  _so much,_  and that the smell of bacon was wafting into his nostrils. The rest of the caravan was awake, and expecting Noctis to come out any second. Well, not any second; usually Gladio was tasked with forcing Noctis out of bed.

Noctis reluctantly pulled himself up into a sitting position, letting his hands run themselves through a shock of jet black spikes, and then down his face. What stood in between him and the blissfully depths of sleep was another day of pretending to be who he wasn't -- who everyone else wanted him to be.

And maybe that was why Prompto didn't come back. Last night, he wasn't a false prince or a relatable best friend or some enticing stranger -- he was _himself_ , vulnerable and sappy and trusting. The worst thing was that it was _easy_ ; everything with Prompto was easy. It felt almost natural for his heart to give itself so freely to Prompto's pretty eyes and soft hands and hungry lips. He'd never felt so  _connected_  to somebody, and although it scared him to lower his walls, it had felt so right.

But it had pushed Prompto away.

It was like every time he let someone get too close, let them see the _real_  Noctis, they left him. Sort of like a curse from his parents; any young child depends on their parents wholeheartedly for everything they needed, and they'd abandoned him. When Ignis and Gladio had asked about his parents, Noctis ran away. Now, when he gave his heart to Prompto, he found himself painfully alone when he needed someone to care about him.

 _No one leaves me when I'm Prince Noctis,_  he thinks as his hands ball up into fists. _That's the point of this whole trip. I've_ made _friends by pretending to be him._ And that was it; if people wanted him to be Prince Noctis, then fine. Noctis the orphan was dead.

He got to his feet and moved to start getting dressed, trying his hardest to ignore the fact that he felt emptier.

 

It wasn't long before Noctis was in the kitchen and grabbing a few pieces of Tenebraen toast and eggs; a small portion of the feasts that Ignis liked to make for breakfast. The tension, however, was enough to make up for all the food Noctis would be missing out on.

It permeated the air like a thick cloud, though no one looked like they wanted to mention it. Gladio was absentmindedly stuffing rolls of sausage into his mouth as he thumbed through a book; Ignis was still in the kitchen, flipping over a pancake with terse lips; and Noctis couldn't bring himself to look at Prompto for longer than a quick glance, but it seemed like he was playing with his food.

Looking at Prompto made his stomach churn and threaten to add onto the plate in front of him.

Noctis wished silently that he stayed in bed.

"Everyone, uh, slept okay?" He asked, trying to ease some of the emotional strain in the room.

Gladio was the only one who answered with a trailing "mhm." Then his brown eyes flicked up to Ignis, who caught them for half a breath before snapping away again. It was a silent exchange that Noctis nearly missed.

"Okay. So, um, did Cid get back to you, Ignis? About... going to Insomnia," he pressed, trying to remain composed. He wasn't going to freak out about not knowing what Gladio and Ignis knew, no matter how clammy it made his hands feel. Because maybe they  _did_  hear back, and maybe Cid decided not to call the king after all, or maybe the king didn't want him to come, or maybe there was now a bounty on his head, for the boy who dared to impersonate the prince --

"He has. His Majesty has agreed to meet you." Ignis' voice was quiet and nonchalant, as if they were just taking a trip around the block and coming right back.

Noctis' eyes went wide with surprise and he nearly opened his mouth to squawk out, " _What?!"_  when he remembered himself. He took a breath, and then turned back to his food. "Oh. Okay, cool. So we're leaving today?" There was no way to hide the trembling in his voice.

Gladio looked up at him with a crooked eyebrow. "Yeah. It shouldn't take long, maybe a couple of hours to get over there. Got your performance ready?"

Noctis shrugged and stuck a thick glob of scrambled egg into his mouth. His entire life from here on out was going to feel like a performance. "Think so."

"It seems that we're out of milk," Ignis suddenly announced, picking the empty container out of the fridge. "Prompto, would you be so kind as to run over to the store and get another?"

Hearing Prompto's name made Noctis uneasy, but not in the good way it had just a few days ago, before their first kiss. To offset the _spinning room_  feeling, he stabbed into the same bit of toast over and over. 

The sound of Prompto's chair shifting filled his ears. "Uh, sure. Noct, wanna come?"

It was such a  _simple question,_  but it made Noctis feel like his nerves were going haywire.  _Yes,_  he wanted to go, but  _no,_  he didn't want to hear whatever excuse Prompto had for last night that would give him another opportunity to get Noctis vulnerable again. "I'm okay," he mumbled after a silence that was definitely too long.

He could feel Prompto's gaze on him, could imagine the hurt that played across his face, but Noctis only turned away.

"M'kay. So, I'll, just, uh..." Prompto walked over to Ignis, took the clinking gil into his hand, and then headed out the caravan. With Prompto gone, Noctis felt like he could  _breathe_  again.

The silence didn't last long; a few seconds after Prompto left, Ignis cleared his throat as if about to speak, and Gladio put down the book.

"We need to ask you something," Ignis began, turning the stove off and placing the new batch of pancakes on a plate already stacked high with them. Noctis sworehe could hear something like _trepidation_  in his voice. "And it's rather sensitive."

 _Oh, great. Another favor that probably requires me risking my life._  If Prompto could ask him to destroy the Crystal, what would Gladio and Ignis ask for?

"Shoot."

The adviser moved from the kitchen to the seat in front of Noctis, exhaling a long breath through his nose. He looked lost in thought, trying to piece together some sort of puzzle that had too many pieces. "Forgive me for asking, and  _please_  don't walk away, but I don't believe you ever answered my question as to the whereabouts of your parents."

Noctis stared back at him blankly as the question registered in his brain. He could have laughed in that moment. _How many times was he going to punished for wearing his heart on his sleeve?_

His skin bristled with the idea of sharing such personal information with anyone, let alone Gladio and Ignis. The only reason that anyone had ever known he was an orphan was because he  _lived_  in an orphanage. He took classes there, all his outdoor activities happened with other orphans, he was Sanja's poster child for going door to door to get people to pity the poor children, _especially those left for dead in the trash like this little one_ , growing up in Insomnia's terrible economy because _doesn't he remind you of our lost prince?_

"I don't see why it matters," Noctis answered tersely, gripping his fork so tight that the pads of his fingers were white as paper.

"Because we need to know if you have anything from them. Something to remember them by." Gladio answered. Ignis gave him a look, and Noctis could understand why; the question was too forward, and Noctis knew exactly what they were getting at.

Now he did chuckle out loud. Because  _of course,_  it hadn't been enough for Prompto to disappoint him; he'd gone and told Ignis and Gladio about it, too. The three of them probably laughed about how  _stupid_  Noct was for thinking that he'd be able to find his parents based on some dingy old necklace with their initials on it. His cheeks started to burn and his eyes prickled with tears just imagining it.

Before Noctis could think about how he would answer, his heart spoke for him: "Guys, I'm sorry, but I'm not giving it up. It's the only thing I have from them, and if that means I can't go to Insomnia, then fine. I'll figure it out."

Ignis and Gladio looked at each other with widening eyes, and then there was a never-ending stretch of deafening silence. Noctis wanted to leave. Surely by nownow, it was within his rights of social laws --

"What is  _it?_ " Ignis asked slowly, pointedly.

The gem sitting in the middle of his chest felt cold against his skin.  _Noctis the orphan is dead,_  he reminded himself. There was no point in fighting. He needed to be what other people wanted him to be -- otherwise, he was nothing.

Still, when he lifted his arm to reach inside his shirt, every nerve ending in him was protesting, trying to hold back, trying to restrain him.

It was with great difficulty that Noctis pulled the gem from out behind his shirt. It felt heavier somehow.

Ignis and Gladio seemed to elate where Noctis felt deflated. Awe struck their faces and stayed there; Ignis even smiled, wide and watery, like there was too much emotion for him to remain the cool and calculating suit he usually was.

"Gods above," Gladio whispered, getting to his feet. He looked like he'd seen a ghost.

And then he bowed.


End file.
